**3. Professional functions of the teacher and the quality of his work**

*In pedagogy, there is a known ( … ) thesis that working conditions determine the quality of the effects of action S. Brzozowski* [18].

In the education system, it is the teacher who plays a key role, because education is to a large extent what the state-led educational policy wants, but at the same time it is really the same as everyday teaching activity (Suchodolski, quoted in [19]). The teaching profession is assigned functions - covering specific, specific tasks. There are many classifications of teaching functions in the literature, but the best known is the division into the teaching, educational, caring, environmental, research and life orientation of young people [20].

The age of preschool children (2.5–6 years old) is associated with intensified activities related to the care and educational and didactic functions of teachers. They focus on tasks related to:


All activities related to the implementation of tasks resulting from the performed professional functions are based on properly selected and adapted to the psychophysical abilities of children, educational interactions [21]. Hence, it is imperative that their implementation by teachers meets the highest standards defined by the provisions of the educational law and the code of teaching pragmatics. It is equally important to ensure appropriate conditions for their professional functioning.

Therefore, an important aspect of the implemented educational reforms is the general tendency to improve the quality of education. This quality relates to the work of the teacher and, consequently, to the quality/effectiveness of the work of the entire kindergarten. It seems obvious, because quality becomes an equal challenge, measure and requirement of contemporary pedagogical theory and practice [22].

Factors determining the quality of a teacher's work can be divided into:


As can be seen, the quality/efficiency of the teacher's work in the performance of the assigned professional functions is determined by many different factors that are referenced in specific and diverse interpersonal relations occurring in educational institutions. The planes of these relations include not only the teacher and the student, but also the teacher - parents /legal guardians, teacher - student's /child's assistant, teacher - specialists/therapists; teacher - headmaster; teacher - teacher/group of teachers or teacher - other staff of the institution. As a result, it can be assumed that interpersonal relationships and all related processes and phenomena constitute a special place in the work of teachers, and conflicts are one of them. Since the very beginning of teaching and educating children and youth, a discussion has been held on the teacher and his professional functioning.

Empirical investigations in the field of pedeutology relate to a large extent to such areas as: predispositions and competences, teacher's autonomy, professional satisfaction and well-being of educators, professional burnout and its implications for the professional functioning of teachers, stress in teachers' work and coping strategies.

Meanwhile, various external factors (including permanent reforms of the education system; increasing requirements and expectations on the part of state and local authorities, parents and students; excessive bureaucratization or insufficient financing of education) as well as internal (e.g. organizational culture of an educational institution; the level of psychosocial and professional competences of teachers; occurrence/intensification of salutogenic and stressogenic factors, etc.) (see [10, 24–26]) may be determinants of conflicts between members of teaching teams.

It should be emphasized at this point that although the topic of many works is the correlation between disharmony in personal and professional life, without any specific indication of teachers, the scheme of implication of conflicts for various areas of life is the same (see [27–31]).

*Conflict and the Quality of Teachers' Work DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111741*

The current literature on conflicts in educational institutions focuses mainly on conflict situations and ways of resolving them among students (see [31–36]).

However, the perception of educational institutions such as schools or kindergartens in the category of organization, allowed for the diagnosis of conflict and the ways of using it as a potential tool for managing the institution. This, in turn, shows the potential for conflict in the management and guidance of an educational institution with the use of human capital (teachers and other staff) and other assets (tangible and intangible).

In the literature, more and more space is devoted to the topics of leadership of principals and teachers, and conflict management in schools (see [37–41]). One important fact should be noted - how little attention in the literature is paid to conflicts and their implications on the work of kindergarten teachers. And yet, preschool education, as clearly emphasized in the 1972 report on the state of education in the world under the patronage of UNESCO<sup>1</sup> , is a key stage in the *effectiveness of the state's educational and cultural policy* [42].
