Developing the teaching professional: what teacher educators need to know about emotions

Abstract

Teacher educators have long been concerned about the emotional well-being of their students, but the current focus on violence, bullying, substance abuse and distress in schools makes it imperative that teachers better develop student social and emotional literacy skills. Recent research on emotion has influenced the growth of special school programs to enhance social and emotional competencies. It is time to implement a social/emotional literacy curriculum in teacher education. This article describes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of emotional literacy that should become components of teacher education programs; further, the article suggests several ways of implementing these curriculum revisions.