The Meaning of Play Teaching Experienced by Childcare Teachers through the 2019 Revised Nuri Curriculum: Focusing on van Manen's Phenomenological Research

Objectives The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of play teaching experienced by childcare teachers while runniing the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum. Methods van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenological research method was used in this study. Participants in the study were selected as 8 early childhood teachers who were running the curriculum at the daycare center. The data were collected through three individual in-depth interviews with the participants, and organized in the four existentials presented by van Menen. Finally, the essential subject was analyzed with the data. Results 4 essential themes and 12 experience classifications were derived based on lived body, lived space, lived time, and lived human relation. The essential theme of lived body was analyzed as ‘a teacher growing with children’, the essential theme of lived space was ‘a play space created together’, the essential theme of lived time was ‘time to be secured for play’, and the essential theme of lived human relation was ‘a curriculum created by children, teachers, institutions, and families’. Conclusions This study is meaningful in that it presented the nature of play teaching experienced by childcare teachers through the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum. This result is significant in that it can be used to develop programs to promote play teaching of early childhood teachers and to develop scales related to play teaching of the teachers.