Social–Emotional Management to Promote Quality in Education: A Training Program for Teachers

Abstract

Social–emotional management in educational centers is a key element nowadays to achieve quality education, having become even more important after the pandemic period caused by the COVID-19 virus. Training programs in socioemotional skills, such as the EmocionaTFamilia program, are necessary to enhance teachers’ soft skills. This research aims to understand how the EmocionaTFamilia program promotes socioemotional skills to deal with teaching management and practice, as well as the fear generated by the pandemic. For this purpose, quantitative and qualitative evaluative research on the program has been carried out using the TMMS and COVID-19 fear online questionnaires, in which emotional attention, clarity, and repair, as well as fear, have been analyzed. A total of 21 participants, including the school’s management team and elementary and secondary teachers, participated in an educational institution located in Madrid, Colombia. The age of the sample ranged from 22 to 54 years old, with 1 to 20 years of teaching experience. The program was implemented in six sessions over three months, sequenced at three levels: the development of awareness and basic training in emotional education; the development of emotional competences; and coping with fear. The results show that, once the program has been implemented, there is an improvement in the means of all the emotional dimensions and in coping with fear in the study population. These dimensions allow for becoming aware of emotions and learning to place them in the right place, acquiring awareness to accompany students in their strengths and weaknesses. Encouraging listening to peers to transform fears into gratitude is promoted. Thus, the findings of this research reveal a scenario that underscores the need for adequate continuous training in socioemotional skills to enable the management of emotions and fear in the classroom.

1. Introduction

In 2015, the United Nations established the 2030 Agenda, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Among these goals is Quality Education, which ensures that students acquire both professional and personal skills. To achieve this, teacher training is required to work not only on professional skills but also on personal skills, including emotions.

1.1. The Relevance of Emotions in the Field of Education

Emotions are relevant as they play an adaptive and nexus function with our organism. In fact, this connection of the organism affects (affects job satisfaction) job satisfaction, burnout, and identity. For a teacher, this connection expands and increases (se aumenta) as it becomes present in the classroom itself, in the teacher’s relationship with himself, with his colleagues, and in his own family, especially during and after the pandemic [1]. Thus, a lack of connection with emotions leads the teacher, especially during and after the pandemic, to feel dehumanized in his or her own teaching career [2]. In this sense, combining work with supervising teaching tasks and providing support to children and adolescents after the pandemic increases teachers’ stress and hampers their readiness to address new scenarios [3].

As a consequence of the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the daily routine has been transformed, blurring the boundaries between personal, family, and professional, with teachers having to manage all these facets in the same space and place [4]. Research in this field recognizes the complexity of emotions, especially when trying to define or delimit them, as well as the short- and long-term effects of home confinement on both teachers and students. In fact, these investigations show a negative impact at the psychological, emotional, and behavioral levels that involves changes in routines, changes at the physical level, and even the use of screens [5,6]. This scenario can be influenced by the functioning of other interconnected domains, among which family, school, and society may be involved. In fact, the literature shows a higher risk in children who have been separated from their guardian of reference and who have remained longer in the family nucleus, where economic and social difficulties, situations of mental illness, or even disability, among others, may have been present. These subjects have presented greater symptoms of sadness, boredom, difficulties in concentration, restlessness, loneliness, and worry [7,8]. Upon arriving in the classroom, teachers have found a reduction in the emotional well-being of the students, along with their own, which they have to face.

We can see that emotions reveal a common element: their intangibility, since they are composed of images that cannot be seen or observed and sounds that cannot be heard. Emotions are only perceptible and meaningful for the person who experiences them, and in many cases, they disturb them, causing their reality to appear cloudy and confused [9]. The repression of emotions, without the development of the skills required to cope with a changing situation, hinders natural movement and generates a paralysis of the organism’s systems that depend on them. Subsequently, this leads to a deterioration of resilience and socioemotional mechanisms necessary for the well-being of the students and the teachers, all contributing to a difficulty in coping with fear in a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world [10].

1.2. The Impact of Fear

Fear of life is actually fear and ignorance of emotions. Fear, a basic and universal emotion, which fulfills an adaptive function of protection and defense, changes with age, although it can stagnate for prolonged periods of time in the same evolutionary stage [11], especially accentuated after VUCA-19 and significant in the juvenile population [1,3]. Therefore, it is crucial for educators to receive training in emotional support not only for their personal work following the fear generated by COVID-19 but also to enable them to detect psychological disturbances in the classroom [9,12,13]. Currently, there is found a need for schools to develop plans for the development of students and teachers, allowing them to more easily cope with any difficulties that may arise in their academic lives [14].

Therefore, it can be affirmed that there is a growing need in classrooms linked to the development of emotional competence. In this sense, this research aims to promote and encourage awareness and basic training in emotions and the development of emotional competence, as well as dealing with the impact of fear, gathering the beneficial effects derived from the application of the EmocionaTFamilia program. Thus, the TMMS-24 and COVID-19 fear questionnaires are used to assess emotional attention, clarity, and repair skills and COVID-19 fear coping. Data will be collected at the beginning and end of the program through pre-test and post-test assessments. Additionally, responses to different questions and activities during the program, as well as those provided in the open-ended questionnaire regarding acquired skills and coping with fear, will be transcribed. Subsequently, the results will be statistically analyzed, using SPSS for quantitative data and MAXQDA for qualitative data, to discuss and draw conclusions about the relevance or not of the EmocionaTFamilia program. Participation is voluntary, and they can drop out of the test at any time. However, these findings require an awareness of the complexity of the study focus and the long-term impact of the results achieved.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. COVID-19 Fear in Teachers

Research on the effect of the COVID-19 era on teachers and its link with socioemotional competencies has become increasingly relevant over the last three years. In fact, numerous studies have been conducted on the impact of this health crisis on fields of study, such as teacher motivation, job satisfaction, or resilience, among others [2]. Similarly, there have also been studies that analyzed the impacts of confinement and online teaching from the perspective of management of management teams and their emotional impact before and after the pandemic [15]. However, what has happened to fear and its layers? The impact of the COVID-19 crisis has left a “big footprint” emotionally, a footprint that carries different levels of graduation and mutation. The fear of contagion in school is the risk that generated more anxiety in teachers [16]. In fact, these facets or faces of fear run smoothly or abruptly between the past and the future [12,17].

In this sense, the softer faces of fear generate an uncomfortable and annoying effect, while the more abrupt faces of fear provoke a paralyzing, disconcerting effect, making people feel trapped, guilty, and submissive—in short, experiencing a clear absence of love [2,9]. When fear arises from the most unconscious stage of the brain and manifests itself from childhood, it is convenient to look at the origin of its formulation. So, what are the ingredients of these fears? Existential fears, in their real or non-real aspect, have been the most emerging in the post-COVID-19 era [18]. These fears encompass variables such as vulnerability, pain, family disconnection, irritability, restlessness, and emptiness, leading to consequences such as illness, grief, death, destruction, slavery, and abandonment [19].

Fear without emotional support has a negative impact on the quality of lives of teachers. This quality of life should not be understood only as the absence of illness or disability but as a state that “generates full physical, emotional and social well-being” [17] (p. 294). Therefore, when we analyze the typologies of fears and their evolutionary stages, we become aware of the need to develop a prevention program that brings us closer to being aware of this new scenario [20].

2.2. Social–Emotional Management Programs: The EmocionaTFamilia Program

According to the studies conducted by Hadar et al., there are few investigations that present successful programs for teacher training that enable the creation of positive classroom environments [9]. This growing discourse has been presented to world organizations such as OECD and UNESCO, trying to generate models of socioemotional competencies that emphasize self-awareness, regulation, social awareness, communication skills, empathy, and responsible decision making [21].

A line of research that has progressed strongly, due to the current situation, is the one that addresses the impact of emotions on teachers and thus their subsequent influence on students. It has been observed how this impact triggers a call effect that impacts the levels of stress, fear, and anxiety of the students as a whole [22,23]. In fact, the role of the teacher extends and blends with the role of families in the student’s day-to-day life. Thus, fears of job loss, of leaving their children alone at home, or of illness or other associated symptoms make the situation more vulnerable and increase uncertainty and anxiety in the family and school contexts [1,17,24].

As an example, in a recent investigation in China with more than 15,000 participants, it was observed that the negative emotions of the group had increased when it was detected that the most used words in online search applications were “health”, “death”, and “family”. This effect was produced as a consequence of the high concern for health and family felt by the participants. Thus, these a priori positive emotions were progressively triggering feelings and emotions associated with anger, anxiety, and indignation, presenting a great fluctuation between the limbic processing of these emotions [25].

Authors such as Lizana et al. [26] emphasize that increased access to technology has increased stress levels and work overload. This situation has had an impact on the personal and professional lives of teachers, producing physical and mental exhaustion and burnout. In fact, this situation is called “technostress” and is associated with various psychosocial demands [27]. This new situation has triggered other physical illnesses, such as the high prevalence of obesity coupled with low physical activity. This suggests the imperative need to develop training courses that pick up socioemotional management and technological transition [28].

The feeling of fear, coupled with anxiety and a high level of emotional distress in healthy individuals, triggers manifestations of clinical stress in the most vulnerable aspects of life. This fear distances us from paying “emotional attention” to the relevant and beneficial aspects of our lives and makes us prone to “myths”, “worry”, “vulnerability”, and involuntary “subjugation”, which can lead to traumatic impacts and disasters on our mental health. The impact of this emotional distancing has been observed in parenting styles, family interactions, increased anxiety among parents, and the symptomatology that accompanies the children [12,29,30].

The challenge posed by this new scenario is a reason for survival for many teachers, so it is essential to acquire new learning that can generate new knowledge and behaviors and achieve adequate attention, clarity, and emotional repair. This new form of learning must be acquired and shared with students and teachers in order to create contexts for the integral promotion of students [31,32]. To this is added the involvement in a new social context with families, students, teachers, and management teams through the creation of spaces for emotional needs and socialization [33,34]. In a world of coexistence, in which face-to-face contact prevails and has been mobilized towards an online format, this is achieved by boosting intrinsic motivation and personal qualities resulting from emotional well-being [35].

The EmocionaTFamilia Program is an emotional health and accompaniment program aimed at students, teachers, management teams, and families. Education is not exclusive to one of the educational agents; all of them intervene systemically in the teaching–learning process. This program is based on three important elements: mindfulness, the observatory of socioemotional skills, and practical sessions adapted to the needs and socioemotional skills of the group [36].

The benefits generated by this program are the development of basic and higher executive functions, such as [36]:

• Self-knowledge, self-concept, and group cohesion.

• Promotes decision making by prioritizing tasks.

• Regulates alertness and attention to the task in a full way.

• Manages frustration and anger through the growth of resilience.

• Promotes working memory.

• Regulates action and flexibility through creativity.

• Releases emotional baggage and empty responsibilities.

Consequently, this program teaches to the different educational agents how to manage their emotions through a first session of contextualization of group needs and a subsequent redesign of the sessions to achieve the above-mentioned benefits. In short, it is an excellent socioemotional management program for the different educational agents of the school center.

Therefore, this research aims to assess the effectiveness of the EmocionaTFamilia Program among a group of teachers and the educational management team. It seeks to analyze how this program enhances socioemotional competencies in response to the impact of fear resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to generate new frameworks for socioemotional management in schools and classrooms. These new frameworks will empower teachers to effectively manage their emotions and fears in the classroom.

3. Research Methodology

This section first presents the approach, the design, the objective, the results, and the conclusions, all of which are of interest to this publication. Subsequently, the sample of participants, the development of the implementation of the EmocionaTFamilia program, and the procedures for data collection and analysis are discussed. Likewise, the methodology used for the elaboration and development of the proposed research is presented.

3.1. Research Approach, Design, and Objectives

Methodology: An evaluative investigation of the program is proposed with pre-/post-test measures at the beginning and end of the program for a single group. The research approach is mixed: a quantitative analysis with the collection and analysis of the data collected in the tests, as well as a qualitative analysis for its interpretation and linkage with the objectives of the implemented program.

Instruments: The two instruments used to collect data from the sample are the TMMS-24 and the COVID-19 fear test.

The TMMS-24 questionnaire is based on the Traid Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS), which was developed by Salovey and Mayer and analyzes emotional states in 48 items. It is an instrument that has been widely used in education [37]. The TMMS-24 is composed of 24 items distributed across three skills: emotional attention (8 items), emotional regulation (8 items), and emotional awareness (8 items). This questionnaire uses a Likert scale with five alternatives: do not agree at all, somewhat agree, somewhat agree, strongly agree, and strongly agree. The evaluation of this questionnaire is directly proportional—the higher the value, the better the dimension, i.e., if the person obtains a higher value in the post-test in emotional attention, this indicates that this skill has improved. Cronbach’s alpha values were adequate, with 0.84 for emotional attention, 0.82 for emotional clarity, and 0.81 for emotional repair [37].

The COVID-19 fear scale was developed and validated by Ahorsu et al. (2020) [38] and subsequently adapted and validated for the Colombian population by Cassiani-Miranda, Tirado-Otálvaro, and Campo-Arias (2022) [39]. This questionnaire consists of 7 items using a Likert scale with 5 options: strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, and strongly agree. The evaluation of this scale is inversely proportional—the lower the score, the better the coping with fear. Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.82 were considered adequate [38,39].

For the qualitative analysis, several open-ended questions were asked during the training program:

• In the first session, participants are asked to fill out a questionnaire, answering the following questions about fear: (1) choose a type of fear and mention it below; (2) what contributes to your fear(s); and (3) what are the consequences?

• In the intermediate sessions, they were asked the following questions: (1) how do you manage your fears; (2) what are the benefits of practicing; and (3) what emotions arise when we express gratitude? Both the initial and intermediate questions were formulated by the authors of this research.

• At the conclusion of the program, participants were asked to conduct their own evaluation of the course they had attended.

Objective: The objective of this research is to evaluate the improvement of socioemotional competencies and post-pandemic fear management among teachers and the management team belonging to an educational center in the city of Madrid, Colombia, after the application of the EmocionaTFamilia program.

Design: This program is based on the theoretical foundation of education and emotional competence, which was understood by Bisquerra and Pérez as “the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to understand, express and regulate emotional phenomena appropriately” [40] (p. 69). This program was adapted to the needs of the target school of study and, especially, to the fear arising as a consequence of the situation caused by COVID-19 and its return to the classroom in 2021. For all of the above, the fear generated by COVID-19 and the emotional skills of emotional attention, emotional clarity, and emotional repair were taken into consideration for this work as dimensions of study.

The research is relevant due to the necessity for the development of teacher training programs in socioemotional competencies adapted to their specific needs. Normally, programs concerning socioemotional competencies are focused on students. However, it is crucial for teachers to undergo training initially, fostering a collective awareness regarding the significance and necessity of integrating all acquired learning, resources, and knowledge into classroom management and counseling sessions with families.

3.2. Implementation of the EmocionaTFamilia Program

Sample and participation: Participation in the intervention program included in this study was voluntary. Informed consent was obtained from the school management and the subjects participating in this study, who could withdraw at any time during the implementation of the program. The participants in this study comprised the management team and primary and secondary school teachers of a subsidiary school in Madrid, Colombia. This particular school follows a single curricular line, resulting in a limited number of teachers, totaling 23 individuals. The criterion for participant selection was to include all members of the school given the small sample size.

This program was originally designed for all the members of the center, which is made up of 23 teachers and two members of the management team (Rector and School Coordinator). All of them participated in the first session and filled in the pre-questionnaires; however, 19 teachers and 2 members of the management team completed the program and filled in the post-test, constituting a total sample size of 21 subjects. The age of the sample ranged between 22 and 54 years (M = 36.95; SD = 9.53); the years of experience vary between 1 and 20 years (M = 12.3; SD = 5.94); and, finally, taking into account the distribution by gender, 19 were women (90.5%) and 2 were men (9.5%).

Phases and objectives of the program: Initially, the experience began with an initial contact between the management of the educational center involved in this study and the training team. During this preliminary contact, the management expressed the need to develop a training program focused on socioemotional competencies within their institution, especially addressing the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2021, the Colombian Minister of Education determined that Colombian schools should switch to an in-person format [41]. It was during this period that the school’s teachers expressed to the center’s management their fear of possible contagion and anxiety due to this circumstance. This prompted the recognition of the imperative to provide enhanced support, clarity, and emotional assistance to help teachers acknowledge and manage this fear, along with its emotional repercussions.

After this first contact, the EmocionaTFamilia program was adapted to the reality of the educational center under study and presented to the management team for approval. In this way, the EmocionaTFamilia program was implemented with a markedly practical character over a total of six sessions (one session every 15 days) in an online format lasting two hours/session. These sessions were based on a participative, cooperative, experiential, and group dynamics methodology. In this way, we sought to enhance training opportunities through reflection and awareness of the influence of emotions in daily activities and how these adapt to ineffective and sometimes blocking behaviors. After achieving the recognition of emotions and existing fear, changes were promoted through activities, thoughts, attitudes, and emotions, with the ultimate goal of promoting learning through personal experience and discussion among group members. The methodology used consisted of the use of activities such as the approach, analysis, and regulation of situations experienced, the making of handicrafts that show their emotions, the debate, and the analysis of texts and videos suggested during the program. The objectives and contents of the program are shown in Table 1.

The following is a schematic breakdown of the contents developed in each of the program sessions:

• In the first session, the program was introduced to promote awareness among the school’s teaching staff, regardless of the educational stage. Subsequently, the TMMS-24 questionnaire, the COVID-19 scale, and the three fear-related questions were presented to delineate the emotional dimensions and fear of the group:

  • ○. Choose a type of fear; what fuels your fear?

  • ○. What are the consequences?

  • ○. How do you cope with your fears?

• Once the answers of the test carried out in the first contact were collected and analyzed, in the second session, the existential and projective fears detected in the group were presented to the teaching team. Based on this information, the rest of the program sessions were subsequently developed, incorporating resources for the development of digital competence in a hybrid or alternating format.

• In the third session, the group worked on the question: How do you deal with your fears? Initially, groups were created so that each one can explain how they face their fears. Later, in the large group, the ideas of each group were collected; this allowed them to realize that they coincide in many fears and that these are not exclusive to only one. Next, the story “Little Blue and Little Yellow” was read. This story allows for the reflection that we have different and equal things, but the union of all of us strengthens us and creates new colors. After the session, the ideas of the different groups were collected.

• In the fourth session, we worked on the item: How do we accompany fear? At this point, the teaching and management team was presented with the decalogue of such accompaniment. This decalogue can be listed as follows: (1) respect the fear; (2) listen to the fear; (3) give truthfulness to what is going to happen; (4) allow the fear to express itself; (5) create habits and routines to have security to change; (6) facilitate the creation of a relaxed environment; (7) avoid overprotection; (8) dismantle the fear; (9) be careful with the fears of adults; and (10) offer courage to the students or children. After this decalogue, to prepare for the next session, you are asked to think of 10 ideas or reasons at home for which you feel gratitude and are grateful, and who is responsible for or the provider of those good things. Invite your family to enter ideas into the jar. Come to the next session with the jar closed.

• In the fifth session, we focused on gratitude as a resource that enables us to confront fear by incorporating it into our daily lives. Gratitude is explored through awareness and its relevance. In the previous session, participants were asked to complete the gratitude jar activity, which would collect, in their family and work environment, phrases of gratitude from the participants. At the beginning of the session, the sentences were read aloud, and participants were encouraged to express the emotions evoked by these expressions of gratitude and how their fear evolves. When the jar was empty, they were asked: What do you feel when the jar is empty? What does gratitude bring us? How do we feel when we are grateful? We finished by looking at and explaining the three stones of gratitude: joy, grace, and love. It is not easy to say thank you, and we do not say it in the same way to a person we love as we do to a person we do not love.

• In the last session, we read the story of hearts, this is my heart. Afterwards, they will make several hearts with colored cardboard of different sizes, and they will write the most meaningful phrases for them. They will glue the different hearts according to their size and put a string on them. Then, they will dance to the song Comptine d’un autre été from the movie Amelie. We finished with the reading of the story The King of the Sea. In this text, we analyze the importance of the group’s socioemotional management. Finally, the TMMS questionnaire and the COVID-19 scale were carried out again. In addition, open-ended questions were asked to find out whether the group members have evolved in coping with fear and gather their feedback on the program’s evaluation.

It should be noted that these sessions were adapted to the needs and reality of the participants, as well as to the evolution of the group in the three skills and fear. At all times, the confidentiality, information, and anonymity of each of the members of the training were taken into account, as well as respect for the ethical values established in the Declaration of Helsinki for research with human beings.

3.3. Data Analysis

For the quantitative analysis of the pre-test and post-test of the program training, the differences in the means and standard deviation of the different variables of the questionnaires were evaluated. The paired samples test was also calculated to evaluate the significance of these variables. For the qualitative study of the discourse made by the participants during the course and in the final evaluation, the recorded sessions and the open-ended answers given in the questionnaire were transcribed manually. To safeguard the identity of the participants, each participant had an identification code and gender (P1, female; P2, male). Finally, for the analysis of the responses to the teachers’ open-ended questions, as well as the coding, categories were constructed using a prioritization of inductive methodology.

The software used for the analysis of these results was SPSS v. 25 for quantitative data and MAXQDA 2020 for qualitative data. In the quantitative part, the questionnaires were passed in online format before and after implementation. Subsequently, the data were collected and analyzed, taking into account the assessment tables of the original questionnaires. In the qualitative part, the sessions were recorded for subsequent transcription. They were coded using the MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software tool. Coding was inductive, and codes were formulated from what was observed in the data. Codes were selected for central research questions, corresponding to the different questions asked during the implementation of the program and in the final evaluation of the program.

4. Results

This section presents the results obtained to achieve the objectives set out in this evaluative research of the EmocionaTFamilia program.

4.1. Impact of the Training Program on Emotional Skills and Fear of COVID-19

Firstly, the effects of the training program on the level of emotional competence assessed by the TMMS 24 questionnaire, in terms of general emotional competence and the specific skills of attention (emotional clarity and repair), and the level of fear of COVID-19 are tested.

Initially, the standard deviations obtained from the responses of the 21 participants were calculated. Table 2 shows the results obtained for the mean, median, and standard deviation. Subsequently, we checked the normality of the three emotional skills, the TMMS-24 questionnaire, and the level of fear of the COVID-19 questionnaire by means of the Shapiro–Wilk test since the sample is less than 50 items. In Table 3, we can see that, with the exception of emotional attention, all meet normality. Next, we want to determine whether there is a difference between the means (normality) or medians (non-parametric) of the pre- and post-programs, for which we use the Student’s t-test for normal variables and the Wilcoxon test for non-parametric variables. Therefore, the Student’s t-test is performed for the related samples for emotional clarity, emotional repair, TMMS-24, and level of fear of COVID-19 in the pre-test and post-test. For the emotional attention skill, the Wilcoxon test will be performed for non-parametric tests of its pre-test and post-test levels. Next, we will see the results obtained from each of the questionnaires.

4.1.1. TMMS-24 Questionnaire

It can be seen that the implementation of the training program led to an increase in the mean of the three social–emotional skills and the TMMS-24 indicator, with the most notable improvement observed in emotional attention. This indicates a significant enhancement in this particular skill. However, concerning the standard deviation, an increase is observed across all indicators, especially in emotional attention and repair (raising the TMMS-24 indicator). This indicates that not all participants have evolved uniformly in their socioemotional skills and fear control. This indicates that working with emotions is gradual and individualized, with varying rates of progress among participants. Therefore, it is necessary to continue the training process for socioemotional competencies in order to achieve the individual development of each member.

The results obtained are shown in Table 4 and Table 5, where it can be seen that there are significant differences between the results obtained in the initial and final evaluations for the emotional attention skill. In this sense, we can justifiably infer that the EmocionaTFamilia program has improved the emotional attention of the participants. However, this positive effect has not been produced in the skills of emotional clarity and repair nor in the total level of the TMMS-24. This indicator includes the three skills, but the improvement has only been produced in one of them.

4.1.2. Fear of COVID-19

We can see that the mean COVID-19 fear has decreased significantly, indicating an improvement since lower values correspond to reduced fear levels. However, it is noteworthy that there has been an increase in the indicator in relation to the standard deviation, so that, as in the socioemotional skills, the process of personal work is slow and work must be carried out to improve this emotion.

In Table 4 and Table 5, we find significant differences between the results obtained in the initial and final evaluations for fear of COVID-19. This leads us to determine that the EmocionaTFamilia program has improved the control of this emotion.

4.2. Lessons Learned with the EmocionaTfamilia Program

In order to continue with the verification of the hypothesis raised, we turn to the evolution of the participants’ answers to the open-ended questions posed:

Types of fears: In the first question, participants are asked to indicate which types of fears. It is evident how nine participants express “fear of contagion of COVID-19” and what “can happen to their family”. Eight participants respond that “they are afraid of eremophobia as a consequence of the situation they live in due to COVID-19”. Therefore, in the first session, it was noted that 80.9% of the participants expressed fear related to COVID-19. The remaining participants articulated fears unrelated to the pandemic, such as claustrophobia, heights, acceptance, and darkness.

What feeds your fear, and what consequences does it have: As a result of what feeds your fear, it is evident that the majority of the answers are “insecurity and uncertainty about the current situation”. In fact, fourteen people (67%) framed it as “death or illness”, and the rest of the answers are located in aspects around “empathy’’, “criticism”, and “being alone or doubting what you do”. Regarding the consequences, a greater frequency of choice is evident in variables such as “fear and/or dread” (57.1% of the participants). Along with these variables, others are added, such as “sadness, depression, stress and anxiety, being alone, infecting others or losing my life, and insecurity in what I do on a daily basis”.

Coping with fear: When asked in the session how they cope with fear, participants tend to agree on the process of dealing with fear with respect to the different existential and projective fears. In this sense, all the people present these fears and can face them in an individual or group way with the support of the rest of their fellow teachers. Likewise, they state that this self-control of fear allows them to maintain emotional control in the classroom and in tutorials with families.

Gratitude: During the gratitude pot exercise and the sharing afterwards, the participants state that the empty boat generates anxiety and that gratitude is a resource that helps them to face their fears in all the situations they live in, personally, at work, with family, and socially. In addition, they explain that by being in a state of gratitude, they feel much better about every moment of the day and the problems that may arise. This has allowed the teachers involved in the experience to improve coexistence in their family and/or work environment. Gratitude allows participants to experience positivity and engage in altruistic actions. This fact is not simply a strategy or tactic driven by considerations of loss or gain; rather, it presents a state of being that propels individuals towards goodness and greatness. Therefore, working on and reinforcing gratitude facilitates the coping of fears, the unforeseen events of everyday life, and the uncertainty of each moment and improves coexistence, thus improving the emotional well-being of the person [42]. Gratitude amplifies, rescues, and connects with our gaze. This is how the participants of the study have been traveling through the mood of gratitude that, even being ephemeral and difficult to sustain, has allowed them to face their fears in the most positive way on a daily basis.

4.3. Evaluation of the Training Program

In this section, we present the impact of the EmocionaTFamilia program on teachers. In general terms, it can be seen how the participants are grateful for the help received during the training program. They also state that it has helped them acquire tools to be able to control fear:

“Excellent workshop, I like the opportunity it provides to attend to feelings and face fears … I have felt a positive change in my daily life”.

(P19, male)

To develop self-control:

“Appropriate to be able to learn to have self-control over our emotions and to trust ourselves more”.

(P9, female)

To envision emotions for positive change:

“The course allows not only to self-assess who we are, how we act but how we envision our emotions for life, … listening to my peers, I have learned to envision positive changes for each of us”.

(P2, female)

To grow personally and professionally with tools to enrich my life and the life of my environment:

“The course has been the best and very timely for my life, my personal and professional growth, it has given me tools that help me to enrich my personal, family and professional life, thank you very much, very valuable for my experiences and teachings”.

(P3, female)

And identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their pedagogical, personal, and family work:

“Thank you very much for such a valuable and enriching space, the topics addressed were very relevant for these moments and the activities proposed to work in the classroom with students and with families were very good, thank you for strengthening our spirit and our pedagogical task”.

(P14, male)

“The course has been good, because it allows us to know a little more about ourselves, as well as allowing us to identify our strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement in different areas of life”.

(P15, woman)

We can verify that the EmocionaTFamilia program provides key tools for the professional and personal lives of teachers. As indicated by the participants in the study responses, these tools have allowed them to identify strengths and weaknesses and develop skills for fear control and self-regulation. All of this has enabled them to experience greater personal and professional growth. Through the various dynamics carried out in the program, they have become aware that many of the fears identified arise during the developmental stage from 0 to 2 years of age. These include fear of loneliness, existential fears, and projective fears. This impact extends into adulthood if not properly addressed. After a global pandemic situation, these fears surface, and the program has enabled them to identify and find ways to confront them. Therefore, it is relevant for teachers to find a safe refuge for protection against stress and anxiety, allowing them to create safe environments that prevent the deterioration of resilience mechanisms. All these mechanisms will allow them to acquire the appropriate socio-emotional skills to support students in the development of competences.

5. Discussion

The essence of education is to prepare our youth for current and future challenges, and teachers must be prepared to transmit and teach socioemotional competencies to meet these challenges [43]. Interestingly, the purpose of this research is to implement the EmocionaTFamilia program to help teachers, together with their management teams, identify their emotional reactions to emerging and current situations in society. The objectives of the study address awareness and basic training in emotions and the development of emotional competence, allowing us to recognize and repair the emotional situations we project in the classroom and deal with fear. It shows a decalogue of emotional accompaniment that allows us to become aware by creating habits and routines that offer us a safe environment. In addition, the tool of gratitude allows us to become aware of prejudices and facts, as this tool amplifies, rescues, and repairs the impact. For this purpose, it has been observed that the participants in this study present, for the most part, a great emotional impact, defined as fear, as a result of the situation experienced with COVID-19. In fact, over the course of the EmocionaTFamilia program, participants have been able to transmit what their fears are, spanning from claustrophobia and eremophobia to issues like acceptance, darkness, fear of criticism, loneliness, solitude, and self-doubt regarding their responsibilities, among others. Likewise, the participants have been aware of how emotional attention allows them to better understand the environment and their own processes. In addition, this emotional attention has put the focus on the control of fear, which, as the program progressed, allowed them to free themselves from projective fears, and they found themselves with the opportunity to place them in the right place. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on the question: Do we have the appropriate training means to work on these competencies and bring them to the classroom by facilitating fear control?

In the theoretical framework consulted to design this research, it has been observed that the literature often emphasizes the need for teachers and school management teams to react by providing training and tools to young people to face the challenges presented by our complex society [22,43]. However, in relation to evidence regarding teacher training programs to improve teachers’ ability to manage fear, the literature is more limited [2]. This leads us to consider the importance of creating and promoting programs such as EmocionaTFamilia, where the participant’s existential, real or not real, and projective fears are detected. The distinction between “real or not real” may not be so apparent until the scenario is presented to observe and listen to the impact of such fears. Subsequently, the program provides tools to discern, recognize, and work on these fears that hinder emotional development. Finally, participants will be able to enhance other skills that will enable them to more easily cope with the daily practice in the classroom.

When teaching is considered emotional work, teachers can experience such a burden of stress, emotional dissatisfaction, and limitations in their psychological well-being that it is of utmost relevance to create scenarios to understand the complexity of emotions with their affective, psychological, cognitive, expressive, and motivational components [44].

As the recognition of the significance of teachers’ emotions grows, there is a necessity to develop programs to measure and take into account the needs of teachers [9]. For this reason, training programs that train the teaching and management staff of an educational center in social–emotional skills should be promoted [45,46,47,48,49]. There are few tools that bring us closer to taking the emotional temperature of teachers; however, there is more literature linked to burnout or job satisfaction. As a means of understanding and assessing the emotional state of teachers, this research has presented evidence from the EmocionaTFamilia program, which allows us, from the first line, to come closer to knowing this scenario in situ. In fact, the program takes into consideration the emotional state of its participants both before and after implementation, considering such relevant variables as attention, emotional clarity, and repair, as well as the impact of fear on its typology and evolutionary adaptation. Indeed, the results go beyond the study context; as suggested by Atmaca et al. [2], teachers can share these situations with their peers to exchange ideas and/or doubts in their professional path. While exchanging these ideas, they can rethink their emotional and professional development more clearly. Despite the situation generated during and after the pandemic, it is found that the goal is to solve problems in an innovative, collaborative, and learning-centered way [50].

Another implication of the training programs is that the participants have the opportunity to establish goals throughout the different sessions and even revise their beliefs or expectations about their training. Once the training has taken place, the reflections and their own beliefs are structured in the participants, offering them harmony to better face the changes in their professional path [51,52], a reduction in anxiety and burnout [53], and the capacity for solidarity with the teaching staff, students, and families [54]. COVID-19 has been a challenge and a change that has facilitated a technological transition and a rethinking and reinventing of training and learning in different educational contexts [55].

We must recognize that the study is limited to a sample of 19 in-service teachers and 2 management positions in an educational center in the city of Madrid, Colombia. However, the sample has been representative in that educational community since the teachers involved were initiating the transition from online to face-to-face classes after the COVID-19 pandemic, and, in turn, this research can serve as a frame of reference for other research to be developed in a similar context. Although this program was adapted to the needs of the school as a consequence of the situation caused by COVID-19 and its return to the classroom, in addition, the program proposed a total of 12 h of training, with ongoing weekly follow-up sessions for the teachers involved throughout the implementation process.

As supported by the relevant literature, the deeper implications of this research could be triangulated, in the future, in longitudinal studies with various tools, such as interviews, observations, and diaries, to corroborate the follow-up of the emotional accompaniment of the teachers involved.

6. Conclusions

Feeling fear is something involuntary since, on many occasions, it is shown unconsciously. However, we can recognize the faces of fear through our peers, families, students, etc., and when these faces of fear are reinforced and mutated, they become stronger within us. In the present research, significant results have been observed among both the participants and the program itself in variables associated with emotional dimensions and fear. So, what is feeding their fears, and how can they learn from these situations to transform that fear into gratitude? For this purpose, the participants in the EmocionaTFamilia program were involved through the course sessions that were rethought for each observed need. In fact, the application of the program has evidenced improvements in some of the analyzed measures, thus repairing emotional attention and fear control. This improvement offers a major finding of the study that allows the program to be implemented on a large scale in other teaching scenarios. These results are very much in line with the study by Hadar et al. [9], as they allow for offer training in emotional regulation for teachers in the service of future students. In addition, it allows for becoming aware of emotions and learning to place them in the right place. All this leads us to the need to implement training programs for teachers in socioemotional competencies, such as the EmocionaTFamilia program.

These findings allow us to jump to another scenario, since the teachers involved in the experience can collaborate with other teachers and immerse themselves in the reflections created by the new scenarios [2]. Teachers can be transmitters of this line of thought and provide feedback to their peers to generate a rethought emotional identity. The implementation of the program has shown how teachers value this opportunity to be able to generate a space to attend to feelings and thus be able to accompany fear. If these scenarios are not generated, we are silencing the unconscious, and therefore, these situations become detrimental to our future students.

Another implication of the study is that the participants can establish reflections as a result of the tasks and practices given before the sessions. The analyzed variables enable participants to recognize themselves in the situations they observe when they suspend judgment, especially concerning the emotional attention of those being observed. In fact, when judgment is consciously experienced, we begin to look at the beliefs and expectations that we generate from what we see, feel, or think. In this way, teachers were able to evaluate their beliefs and expectations in a more realistic setting and could generate goals for each session. These advances allowed them to self-assess their emotional dimensions and evaluate their progress.

With all the implications shown in the study, it can be concluded that the emotional dimensions of the teachers, during the implementation of the EmocionaTFamilia program, have been accompanied by listening, reflection, relevance, responsibility, and coping evaluation. In this accompaniment, improvements have been observed in the measures of emotional attention and the impact of fear. A scenario has been created in which the participants are fed back to generate a rethought emotional identity. In fact, they have been offered tools that have enabled them to self-evaluate their relationships with their peers and their classroom management. In essence, this process resembles piecing together a puzzle, observing, examining, and listening to various components. All of this makes it possible to provide teachers with an opportunity to develop an emotionally healthy environment.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

In relation to the objectives and scope of the research, it should be noted that the implementation of the program has covered the main emotional dimensions. However, the participants did not report in writing the aspects of improvement presented, although certain measures achieved great progress.

First of all, we must be aware of the selection and size of the sample of 21 participants; the subjectivity of perception and the qualitative information do not allow us to generalize these results with statistical rigor. However, these results have been contrasted with the literature and allow us to demonstrate the importance of conducting training courses and the socioemotional development of teachers, which will facilitate the socioemotional management of the classroom.

Secondly, the superficiality derived from the instruments prevents the generalization of the results with a high level of statistical rigor. In future research, a representative sample will be sought in order to obtain results that can be effectively applied to teaching practice.

Last but not least, this study undertook the analysis and implementation of the EmocionaTFamilia program in a different educational context, as it was implemented online in a convulsive and changing context. In this context, it can be observed how some of the measures improved and the teachers’ opinions reflected satisfaction, as it allowed them to identify their own strengths, weaknesses, and aspects for improvement in their personal and professional lives.

Thus, in line with the previous literature analyzed, as a proposal for the future, it would be convenient to implement this research in longitudinal studies, such as analyzing the socioemotional competences and the work of fear of these teachers with their students, with various instruments, questionnaires, and qualitative data collection that would allow data collection and obtain evidence at a large scale in order to design a well-defined roadmap for the work of these competences and emotions in teaching practice. Likewise, to carry out a monitoring of the emotions of the participants in the two courses following the program.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; methodology, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; software, D.F.; validation, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; formal analysis, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; investigation, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; resources, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; data curation, M.d.C.D.G. and R.M.-S.; writing—original draft preparation, M.d.C.D.G., A.Z.-B. and R.M.-S.; writing—review and editing, A.Z.-B. and D.F.; visualization, D.F. and A.Z.-B.; supervision, D.F.; project administration, A.Z.-B. and D.F.; funding acquisition, D.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was authorized by the legal representative of the institute where the training and research was conducted.

Informed Consent Statement

Written informed consent has been obtained from the participants to publish this paper.

Data Availability Statement

Data are contained within the article.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the teaching staff involved in this experiment for their participation and proactivity during the development of this program. We would also like to thank the project “Desarrollo de competencias docentes a través de metodologías activas” of the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Tables

Table 1

Objectives and contents of EmocionaTFamilia adapted to schools.

Level	Objectives	Contents
1. Awareness and basic training in emotions.	Encourage faculty awareness of the concept and relevance of emotions. Understand the layers of fear from evolutionary development through adulthood.	✔ Concept of emotion. ✔ Emotional competencies and skills. ✔ Existential and projective fears.
2. Development of emotional competence.	Know, discern, and recognize emotional accompaniment in their personal and professional paths. Becoming aware of natural movement situations and stagnations that impede emotional development. Repairing the emotional situations we project in the classroom.	✔ Emotional attention. ✔ Emotional clarity. ✔ Emotional repair.
3. Dealing with fear.	To know and show the decalogue of emotional accompaniment to face fear from its existential and projective aspects. Understanding gratitude from its amplifying, restorative, and rescuing aspects.	✔ Dealing with fear. ✔ Decalogue and resources for dealing with fear. ✔ Gratitude.

Table 2

Results obtained for the mean, median, and standard deviation of socioemotional skills, TMMS-24, and fear of COVID-19.

Factor	Pre-Test				Post-Test
	n	Mean	SD	Median	n	Mean	SD	Median
Emotional attention (AE)	21	25.81	5.582	28	21	30.33	7.780	32
Emotional clarity (CE)	21	27.81	6.282	31	21	29.52	8.054	33
Emotional repair (RE)	21	30.29	6.835	33	21	30.95	7.263	32
TMMS-24	21	83.90	16.155	89	21	90.81	20.815	94
Fear of COVID-19 (MCOV-19)	21	24.00	4.930	25	21	14.95	5.661	13

Table 3

Tests of normality of social–emotional skills using the TMMS-24 and COVID-19 questionnaires.

Factor	Shapiro–Wilk
	Statistician	gl	p-Value
Emotional attention (AE)	0.885	21	0.018
Emotional clarity (CE)	0.912	21	0.059
Emotional repair (RE)	0.978	21	0.898
TMMS-24	0.966	21	0.640
Fear of COVID-19 (MCOV-19)	0.950	21	0.342

Table 4

Student’s t-test for related samples of emotional clarity and repair, TMMS 24, and COVID-19 fear.

Contrast	M	SD	Deviation Error Average	95% Confidence Interval		t-Statistic	gl	p-Value
				Lower	Upper
CE post-CE pre	1.714	7.773	1.696	−1.824	5.252	1.011	20	0.324
RE post-RE pre	0.667	8.546	1.865	−3.223	4.557	0.357	20	0.724
TMMS-24 Post-TMMS-24 Pre	6.905	23.996	5.236	−4.018	17.827	1.319	20	0.202
MCOV-19 Post-MCOV-19 Pre	−9.048	7.338	1.601	−12.388	−5.707	−5.650	20	0.000

Table 5

Wilcoxon test for a related sample of emotional attention.

Contrast	Z	p-Value
AT post–AT pre	−2.505 a	0.012

^a: Based on positive ranges.

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