Development of socio-emotional skills in the training of educators in today’s society

Abstract

Socio-emotional skills comprise a set of habits, thoughts, and emotions that facilitate interpersonal relationships through the appropriate expression of emotions and consideration oftheir impact on others. Backed by neurology, these skills are crucial for learning and for educators’contributions to new generations. This essay aims to reflect on the socio-emotional skills of future education professionals, exploring their influence on teaching and their contribution to society. Given the pandemic situation, it is proposed to present the role of socio-emotional education in theuniversity curricular activities of teacher trainers in Chile, using the critical-interpretative method and hermeneutic phenomenology. The discussion is based on experience, dialogue with groups of students and teachers, identifying key points for the inclusion of emotional skills in teachertraining. The process involved the active participation of the teacher, who took on the initial role inthe intervention by providing instructions and guidelines for the development of socio-emotional skills related to ethics and education in various contexts. This was carried out virtually at a higher education institution in Chile. The conclusion emphasizes the urgency and need to integrate socioemotionaleducation into the curriculum for university education professionals. The alignmentbetween Goleman, Bisquerra, and Morin, theorists who have delved into the subject, is highlighted,although the persistence of orthodox educational models that exclude emotions, focusingexcessively on intellectual capacities and overlooking the need for comprehensive emotionaltraining to face contemporary societal challenges, is noted.