What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Teacher in Lithuania, 2020-2022

• In Event: Issues in Education and Digitality

Abstract

Creative teachers in the school environment relate both to people and to artefacts that are meaningful in a particular teaching/learning process. This relationship shapes a teacher’s thinking and the nature of the interaction, which reflects what and how a teacher thinks and what opportunities s/he offers to the participants of the interaction. The aim was to develop a phenomenological structure of “being a creative teacher” that emerges from teachers’ experiences as well as the relationships between the themes within it. The research question was: “How do teachers experience creativity through temporality, spatiality, relationality, corporeality, materiality and spirituality?” 19 research participants were interviewed. Findings revealed 15 themes (a vertical vector): “being a discoverer”, “being flexible”, “being curious”, “being motivated”, “being in a relationship”, “being a learner”, “being in a profession”, “being civic-minded”, “being a leader”, “being encouraging”, “being opening up”, “being engaging”, “being an authority”, “being courageous” and “being educating”. Each theme covers specific phenomenological dimensions (a horizontal vector): temporality, spatiality, materiality, corporeality, spirituality and relationality. The phenomenological structure of “being a creative teacher” and its content was formed on the basis of the narratives of the research participants, each one’s interpretation of his/her personal experiences, and the clarification of the main generalised structure of these narratives. The potential of the phenomenological structure of “being a creative teacher” lies in the attention to the subjective experience of each teacher, which is reflected in the subthemes, i.e., in the content of the themes.

Short Bio

Vilma Zydziunaite, Professor, PhD, Head Researcher, Director, Educational Research Institute, Education Academy, Vytautas Magnus University
Valentinas Butanavicius, PhD, Assistant Researcher, Educational Research Institute, Education Academy, Vytautas Magnus University

Author

• Vilma Žydžiūnaitė, Vytautas Magnus University