95 Kiru Ramona-Simona Adventus Cernica University ramona.kiru@uadventus.ro THE VALUES OF THE BEGINNER TEACHER Keywords Values, beginner teacher _______________________________________________ Abstract Values are passed on both through the family and the school. The degree of opportunity, necessity or utility of a thing determines its value. The family and the school teach the child, what are the most important values, according to which he must lead his life. The teacher must always be a model of honest behaviour. _______________________________________________ 1. Introduction Education is a component of contemporary man that accompanies him from birth to the end of life. It refers to organized, planned and intentional learning programs. There is formal, non-formal and informal education. The premise behind formal education is that students must know, understand, and be able to do things they would not otherwise know, or could not do, without all these intentional influences, and systematic. This formal education takes place in institutions such as kindergarten, school, university. 96 The family and the school continue to play an important role in educating people by teaching them, what are the most important values according to which they must lead their lives, although this is increasingly done in competition with the media and the Internet. Through the internet today, students can know, understand and be able to do things that their predecessors did only with the help of the education received in school. If the student can manage on his own to procure his intellectual food, then the role of the remaining school? In today's society, there is more and more talk about value in general, and more precisely about integrity, and corruption, lies and falsehood are blamed. Integrity should be a general and profound concern of every human being defined as the set of actions and correct attitudes generated by one's moral and professional obligations. Even if some socio-political and cultural conditions influence the level and quality of private moral life, integrity ultimately remains a matter of choice and personal choice (Killinger, 2007). The study "Education for democracy in Romanian schools" conducted by Gabriel Bădescu, Claudiu Ivan, Daniela Angi, Oana Negru-Subțirică, from Babeş-Bolyai University aimed to discover what are the attitudes, values of teachers, levels of civic involvement, social tolerance and interpersonal trust, the way they see the Romanian education system, in a perspective compared in time and to other countries. One of the results of this study was that rural schools have more young teachers at the beginning of their teaching careers and teachers with ages close to retirement than urban schools. The differences are the biggest in the case of the disciplines that matter most for the continuation of the educational path. The same study also presented a series of values that teachers consider important and that the school can pass on to 97 students in addition to knowledge. Here are these values listed in the order of importance given by teachers: • Good manners • Teamwork and cooperation with others • Feeling of responsibility • Tolerance and respect for other people • Perseverance • Diligence • Imagination • The spirit of competition • Independence • Altruism • The spirit of saving • Religious faith • Submission From the perspective of the value model proposed by Shalom Schwartz (2001, 2004), values are motivational constructs that integrate goals that people seek to achieve. These goals have a high level of generality and are a kind of life goals, which outline the way the person wants to live his/her own life. Thus, these goals guide globally the type of activities, people, or things that someone wants to interact with. Not all values are equally important to one person. Some values have a central role in self-definition, meaning that the person could not give them up without feeling that he is making a major concession, while others have a peripheral role in how people define themselves. Thus, values with a central role in self-definition are much more stable in relation to different contexts or situations. Schwartz (2001, 2004) proposes four broad categories of personal values, with several specific values in each category: • availability for change; • orientation towards conservation; • orientation towards self-transcendence; 98 • orientation towards personal optimization. The results of the study "Education for democracy in Romanian schools" showed that the values of teachers in their sample are focused mainly on self-transcendence and conservation and to a lesser extent with openness to change and personal optimization. In 2019 the Curriculum for Early Education was changed and the beginner teachers have a clear idea of the changes that need to be made to adapt to the new changes. Beginner teachers can provide suggestions for improving the quality of education and for assessing the level of implementation of changes in practice (Spătărelu, 2019a). In order to understand in depth, the image of a teacher suitable for modern society we must outline the fundamental elements that form the central structure, the backbone of career choice and career development throughout his active life. Why does a person want to become a teacher? Gordon (1993) identified the following reasons: • influence from the families of the subjects; • the influence exerted by friends; • the influence coming from a positive teacher model; • the influence coming from a negative teacher model; • the need to "make a difference" - in the sense of supporting the community they come from, to provide equal opportunities for development to students; • the “call” felt towards the didactic profession (or the pedagogical vocation); • love for children / people / passion for teaching; • Long vacations and the pleasure of learning. Ovidiu Pânișoară mentions in the book “Teacher's Guide” the importance of intrinsic motivation in choosing a teaching career. He recalls Rollins (2008) who highlights the factors that are able to promote intrinsic motivation: 99 1. The challenge - a teacher is motivated to achieve goals 2. Curiosity - a teacher is focused on the concept "I want to know more!" 3. Control - the teacher likes to know that he has control over what is happening to him and over what is happening around him. 4. Fantasy - the teacher uses his imagination and creates mental images that are not found in the immediate environment to stimulate specific thinking and behaviours. 5. Competition - teachers like to compare their performance with that of others. 6. Cooperation - the teacher allocates time to help other teachers achieve their goals. 7. Recognition - the teacher wants to be appreciated and valued for his achievements. The first year of teaching is very challenging. Many teachers would like to give up after the first few days. Beginner teachers are vulnerable. Lack of experience, daily challenges, the demands of superiors and pressure from parents are a constant stressor. However, teachers retain the deep sense of their profession, become aware of the huge stakes and choose to follow their great destiny, be the creators of the new society and send their present values into the future, through the children they educate. Transformational leadership is used to a greater extent by younger teachers with a lower degree in education (Kiru, 2019). The transformational leading teacher becomes a source of inspiration for others, through their commitment to leadership, colleagues and students, through their perseverance in a certain activity, through their willingness to take risks and through their strong desire to succeed. 100 2. Methodology Objectives This research aims to study the main values that guide beginner teachers and motivate them not to give up after the first year of teaching. Based on this goal, the following objective has been formulated: 1. Description of the main values that guide beginner teachers. Hypotheses The following hypotheses have been formulated for the present research: 1. What is the most important ability and skill that the beginner teacher should have? 2. Who should primarily support the beginner teacher? Variables The research variables were: gender, age, teaching degree, teaching environment, values. Methods The research method used was the interview-based survey Tools The tool used was the interview. Population The target population of this research is represented by teachers from state and private education. From this population, 11 teachers were chosen as a sample according with Figure 1-4. 2. Results and Discussions The results obtained were indicated in Figure 5-7. The responders choose the most important skill that a beginner teacher 101 should have, choose the most important ability that a beginner teacher should have and indicated who should primarily support the beginner teacher. The results obtained show that: • 1 teacher chose creativity as the most important skill that a beginner teacher should have. • 3 teachers chose adaptation as the most important ability that a beginner teacher should have. • 7 teachers chose patience as the most important skill that a beginner teacher should have. • 1 teacher chose cognitive flexibility as the most important skill a beginner teacher should have. • 3 teachers chose the overview as the most important skill that a beginner teacher should have. • 3 teachers chose collaboration as the most important skill that a beginner teacher should have. • 4 teachers chose emotional intelligence as the most important skill that a beginner teacher should have. • 2 teachers chose the principal as the one who should primarily provide support to the beginner teacher. • 2 teachers chose the person in charge of the methodical commission as the one who should offer first of all support to the beginner teacher. • 2 teachers chose their colleagues as the ones who should provide support primarily to the beginner teacher. • 2 teachers chose their parents as the ones who should first and foremost offer support to the beginner teacher. • 3 teachers chose the mentor as the one who should primarily provide support to the beginner teacher. These results show that beginner teachers need the support they seek from anyone who is available to provide it. And the fact that the first years of teaching represent a great challenge also 102 results from the fact that most chose patience as an important quality of the beginner teacher. 6. Conclusions There are several types of problems that they have to deal with during the first years of teaching (Spătărelu, E. M., 2019b): • Transposition of theory into practice; • Lack of teaching positions close to home; • Lack of teaching materials; • Lack of experience in working with children with disabilities; • Poor educational communication; • Be more captivating than cartoons; • Working effectively with a large group of children; • To teach differentially; • To gain the trust of parents; • To design new projects daily; • To collaborate with experienced teachers; Man is guided by his values. They dictate his behaviour and they are also the ones who lead him to achieve the proposed goals. The teacher is the one who guides the student's learning. So, the teacher's values are the ones that guide the student's learning. The beginner teacher must not lose patience with the challenges that arise in the first year of teaching but must be creative and adapt to any situation. He must use cognitive flexibility, collaboration, overview and emotional intelligence in school relationships. References Badescu, G., Ivan, C., Angi, D., Negru-Subtirica, O. (2018). Educație pentru democrație în școlile din România. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328262519_Ed ucatie_pentru_democratie_in_scolile_din_Romania https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328262519_Educatie_pentru_democratie_in_scolile_din_Romania https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328262519_Educatie_pentru_democratie_in_scolile_din_Romania 103 Gordon, J. (1993). Why Did Select Teaching as a Career? Teachers of Color Tell Their Stories. The Educational Resources Informazion Center: ERIC. Killinger, B. (2007). INTEGRITY - doing the right thing for the right reason. McQueen’s University Press. Kiru, R. (2019). The leading teacher in the teacher-student relationship structure. Cernica: Editura Universității Adventus. Pânișoară, I. O. (2017). Teacher's Guide. Iași: Polirom. Schwartz, S. H., & Boehnke, K. (2004). Evaluating the structure of human values with confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 230-255. Schwartz, S. H., Melech, G., Lehmann, A., Burgess, S., Harris, M., & Owens, V. (2001). Extending the cross-cultural validity of the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 519-542. Spătărelu, E. M. (2019a). Beginner Teacher and early education. Journal of Education Studies, 1 (2), 5-24. Spătărelu, E. M. (2019b). The value of early education from the perspective of a beginner teacher. Journal of Education Studies, 1 (2), 55-73 104 Tables, figures and appendices Figure 1. Distribution of teachers according to age Figure 2. Distribution of teachers according to the level of education they teach Figure 3. Distribution of teachers according to the environment in which they teach 105 Figure 4. Distribution of teachers according to teaching degree Figure 5. Distribution of teachers' responses on the most important capacity Figure 6. Distribution of answers regarding to the most important ability 106 Figure 7. Distribution of teachers' responses to support for beginner teachers