Abstract
This study explores how negative school climate factors, such as classroom violence, can influence a teacher’s pedagogical approach to classroom learning and relationships with students using a transformative lens to improve student engagement and pedagogical approaches after such tragedies occur. The Burke-Litwin (2010) model of organizational climate is used as a framework to understand how a school's organizational climate contributes to a positive learning culture for teachers, post-trauma, with the goal of heightening teachers’ ability to continue to teach and to maintain student engagement post-violence. Major conclusions show that the underlying school climate plays a critical role in how a teacher recovers after witnessing a school shooting. In the recovery of post-violent school events, school cultures have a major impact on teacher morale, relationships between teachers and students, absenteeism (student and teacher), school discipline and, grades and test scores. A school’s organizational climate essentially contributes to teachers’ abilities to engage students actively in the classroom and to continue to be involved in motivational teaching and new pedagogical approaches despite witnessing violence.
Recommended Citation
O'Connor Duffy, J., & Mooney, E. (2014). The Ethical Relationship Between School Violence and Teacher Morale. Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 4 (1), 22-38. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/phs/vol4/iss1/3