Teachers at Work During the Pandemic. A Qualitative Research about Transformative Experiences and Resilience at School

The emergency due to the pandemic of COVID-19 has required great adaptability and resilience from teachers and students. This study explores teachers’ experiences with distance learning during the first Italian lockdown, investigating their personal and professional responsiveness to unexpected circumstances. A sample of 32 primary and 24 secondary school teachers responded to a narrative survey created ad hoc to highlight the differences between the experience factors that characterized the impact and the resilience in the state of emergency. Narratives were explored through T-Lab software, aiming to extract the main themes and their significance. Content analysis of teachers’ narratives indicated significant differences between the affective resources invested in primary and secondary teachers. If primary teachers were supported by affective relationships with students in handling their personal and professional resilience, secondary teachers based their management of emergency on the continuity of teaching methods and scholastic tasks.