For many years, many educational systems have assumed that the quality of education begins, and perhaps ends, with the curricula, plans, and methods of explanation. But a recent international study published by the American Psychological Association reveals a more hidden and influential variable: the feelings with which the teacher enters the classroom.
Within the classroom, information is not transmitted alone from the teacher to his students, but rather feelings of enthusiasm and reassurance are transmitted with it, and feelings of tension, anger, and frustration may also seep in. What the teacher feels during the class may have an impact that goes beyond the method of explanation to reach the students’ self-confidence, their motivation to learn, and even their academic performance.
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In the following lines, we approach the hidden role that teachers’ emotions play within the classroom, and how they can reshape the entire learning experience.
How does a happy teacher make his students more confident and performant?
According to research published in the American Psychological Association, teachers’ emotions in the classroom play a crucial role in how students learn. When teachers feel enjoyment, they provide higher-quality teaching that enhances students’ confidence in their abilities and academic performance, while teacher anger is associated with lower-quality teaching and worse results.
“We decided to conduct this research because teaching is not only an intellectual activity, but also an emotional activity,” says Dr. Marina Elena Pfeiffer, from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the lead researcher on the study. “We wanted to understand the chain linking teacher feeling and student performance.”
The study was conducted on more than 17 thousand students in 8 countries. Participants took the same math lesson, allowing the researchers to compare classes in different countries. Teachers reported their levels of enjoyment and anger, while students rated the quality of teaching, and reported their confidence and interest in the material.
Results showed that teachers who reported greater enjoyment were better able to manage the classroom effectively, build supportive relationships with students, and use teaching strategies that encourage deep and critical thinking. These factors were directly reflected in students’ self-confidence, interest in the subject, and academic results. In contrast, teachers who were controlled by anger showed lower levels of teaching quality in these areas, and their students’ results were clearly poorer.
Pfeiffer comments on the results, saying that previous theories and small studies already indicated the importance of teacher emotions, but what is striking now is that this has been proven on a large scale, and in a very culturally diverse sample. She adds that what is most interesting is the similarity of the mechanisms affecting the quality of teaching and student outcomes, despite the cultural, economic and linguistic differences between countries.
How do students pick up on the teacher’s mood?
The classroom is not only a place for exchanging information, but also an arena for the transmission of feelings. Here the concept of “emotional contagion” appears, one of the most established concepts in modern psychology. The idea suggests that humans pick up on the feelings of others automatically – and without full awareness – through non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and tone of voice, in addition to what appears in speech and behavior.
Social worker Gillian Amodeo explains this process by saying that emotional contagion describes how feelings or behaviors spread between individuals and groups, adding that humans are social beings affected by what is around them, and that our feelings and behaviors are shaped in part by who we live and work with. The problem is that negative emotions are often easier to transmit, and the likelihood of imitating anger, frustration, and depression increases, especially when self-control is low.
Research links this phenomenon to the brain’s mirror neuron system. These cells are activated when a person observes another person performing an action, and he tends to imitate it. When it comes to emotions, this means that seeing someone crying, laughing, complaining, or smiling makes the brain tend to mimic this emotional state, so emotions become “contagious.”
In the classroom, the teacher becomes the most powerful source of emotions. When he speaks enthusiastically, smiles while explaining, or shows genuine interest in the material, students not only notice it, but their brains begin to pick up on this emotional state and respond to it.
How does anger disrupt learning and reprogram classroom behavior?
The psychological explanation for why teachers who reported higher anger scored lower on the quality of teaching and their students showed poorer results is not related to fear alone, but rather to what is known in psychology as “collective emotional regulation.” It is the process in which group members try to influence, modify, or direct the prevailing feelings within it.
Inside the classroom, if the teacher enters and is tense or angry, this tension spreads through the tone of voice, facial expressions, and method of interaction. Then the students begin to respond to the new emotional climate. Some of them remain silent, some become more cautious, and some withdraw from participating. Here we are not talking about the emotion of one individual, but rather about a common emotional state that forms among the entire group.
When anger becomes the dominant tone, students’ energy shifts from exploring and experimenting to observing mistakes and avoiding punishment. A mind preoccupied with survival cannot devote its full resources to learning. On the other hand, when the teacher tries to calm the atmosphere, spread enthusiasm, or restore a sense of security, he is practicing a form of emotional regulation at the group level.
From a cognitive neuroscience perspective, teacher aggression and anger make students feel insecure and this feeling is passed on to them. The amygdala – the part that acts as an alarm system – then activates, triggering the “fight or flight” response to real or imagined danger. In this case, the heart rate increases, and the clarity of logical thinking decreases.
On the other hand, the prefrontal cortex – which is responsible for logical judgment, attention and cognitive regulation – regulates impulses and manages emotions by assessing the situation more calmly. But as the amygdala is activated by anger or threat, the efficiency of this area declines.
When dealing with an angry teacher, brain and body resources are diverted to deal with the “threat” rather than cognitive tasks. When the student feels safe and enthusiastic, the brain is less preoccupied with monitoring dangers, and the prefrontal cortex is freed to support attention, thinking, and problem-solving, and mental resources become available to absorb the educational material.
Will teacher mental health become part of the education “curriculum”?
A study published in 2018 showed that the emotional experience experienced by students in the classroom is not explained only by their personal characteristics or the general school environment, but is also greatly influenced by the teacher’s communication style and style of dealing with them. Teachers who deal with their students in a friendly and caring spirit, and strive to build positive bridges of communication, succeed in creating a warmer and more open environment in which students tend to feel comfortable and integrated, so their participation increases and learning turns into a more positive experience.
These results add a new dimension to what recent studies reveal about teachers’ feelings, as they confirm that teachers’ psychological well-being is not a personal luxury, but rather an essential component of students’ success.
“Our study shows that teacher emotions are not a peripheral detail in the classroom, but rather an influential part of the educational process,” Pfeiffer says. She stresses that taking care of teachers’ mental health should not be seen as a luxury or a postponed priority, but rather as a factor directly linked to students’ ability to learn and achieve better results.
Researchers warn of the “closed circle” that the educational process may suffer due to an angry teacher: anger that leads to weaker teaching, results in worse performance, and fuels more frustration and anger. On the other hand, a complete positive circle can begin with a simple feeling of contentment and enjoyment in the classroom, and this feeling gradually turns into a safer, more enthusiastic, and more effective learning environment for everyone.
