The views of primary school teachers on passion for teaching

The success of an education system is proportional to the quality of the teacher who is one of the executives of the system. Teachers want their students to have a successful education and training life so that they can benefit the society and they feel responsible, as well. The concept of passion which is a trigger that activates individuals, motivates them to spend time and energy, inspires, arouses positive emotions and affects the mind and which is also accepted as one of the effective teacher characteristics as a result of the researches carried out is considered to be important in the context of the teaching profession. In this context, this study aims to reveal how teachers understand the concept of professional passion and what their experiences are in this interpretation process. Since these aims are wanted to examine in depth, the use of qualitative research methodology was deemed appropriate. The research was conducted with a phenomenology pattern, which is one of the qualitative research patterns, since it aims to define the current or past experiences of the classroom teachers in their own words; the meaning, structure and essence of their experiences related to professional passion focusing on their own phenomenal worlds related to professional passion of the classroom teachers participating in this research. The study group of the research consists of 30 classroom teachers to be selected from 30 primary schools in Istanbul. After the literature review on the subject, a semi-structured interview form was prepared as a data collection tool by taking expert opinions. A semi-structured interview form was used to analyze the content of the data collected from the teachers who will be interviewed face to face. In the study, it was observed that the teacher trait, which classroom teachers defined as passionate about their profession, was open to innovations and learning, and passion for the profession affects the students more successfully in their lessons. In addition, the research concluded that there is no external factor that can reduce the passion for the profession, and at this point, the factor that increases the profession passion is that the teacher should be open to continuous learning and development. In line with the results of the research, it is recommended that teachers should not stop learning and having continuous development since they are the main factor in maintaining their passion for profession, and researchers are recommended to diversify qualitative research on professional passion with teachers of different branches.