Teachers-in-training need more instruction on how to develop their own and their students’ social and emotional skills, including the ability to reflect on interactions, empathize with others and calm themselves, according to a report released Thursday by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, an advocacy and research group based in Chicago.
While teacher preparation programs include child development classes, the coursework typically provides no guidance on how teachers can enhance the maturity of their students, according to the report, which surveyed a sample of teacher training programs across the country.
“There was very little on ‘How do you promote self awareness in children? How do you promote empathy?'” said Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, an education professor at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of the report.
A teacher’s ability to reflect on his or her role in what is occurring in the classroom is invaluable, Schonert-Reichl said. She remembered a situation when she was a high school teacher. “I had a student who aggravated me, and I thought, why does she aggravate me so much?” she recalled. The answer came to her: “She reminded me of a student in 5th grade who used to bully me – she even looked like her a bit. My reaction was not to the student so much as it was to the past.”
[For more of this story, written by Jane Meredith Adams, go to https://edsource.org/2017/teac...tional-skills/577328]
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