Family Background of Beginning Education Students: Implications for Teacher Educators

Teacher education has not historically focused on the social and emotional development of teachers even though there is evidence that such variables influence student success (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). We believe such a focus is important and we explored variables in teacher education students' families of origin that underpin social and emotional health and predict a variety of life and workplace outcomes. We administered two widely used scales to 401 preservice teachers. One scale, the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES III), measured family of origin interaction patterns. The other, the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST), explored family of origin alcohol use patterns. Results for both instruments showed divergences from norms with the preservice teachers exhibiting less optimal family functioning. We emphasize that the FACES III and the CAST should not be used as screening devices in teacher education but instead they could be part of a group of instruments and activities devoted to helping future teachers explore how their family backgrounds might influence their social and emotional development and thus their teaching. We discuss how counselor education, which requires a family of origin exploratory activity for counselors in training, might be used as a model for teacher education.  According to Jennings and Greenberg (2009) focusing on teachers' social and emotional development is relatively new to the field of teacher education. Until recently it was assumed that teachers already had or could auto-didactically generate the high levels of social and emotional competence required in today's high stress teaching environments, but this assumption is probably not valid. Recognizing this, Jennings and Greenberg (2009) proposed a model of the prosocial classroom that has as its center teachers' social and emotional competence (SEC). Their model does not assume teachers already have these competencies but instead recognizes the need for professional development. They posit that socially and emotionally competent teachers are at the core of high performing classrooms and that such classrooms are places where students grow socially, emotionally, and cognitively. To provide evidence, they reviewed a large and expansive body of literature. In our study, we did not directly measure teachers' social and emotional competence. We took a step back and measured antecedent variables that have been shown in previous research outside of education to underpin SEC. Specifically, we measured in a group of preservice teachers their family of origin interaction patterns and the amount of alcohol use in the family of origin. Both of these variables have been shown to have important relationships with adult social and emotional health, workplace behaviors, career decideness, and other important life-choices (Chassin & Hadley, 2006; Fromme, 2006). Our study was underpinned by an additional key assertion. Namely, one of the most important variables in student achievement is teacher quality (Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006). It thus follows that since early life experiences in the family appear to influence social and emotional health later in life and social and emotional health appear to be essential components of teacher quality (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009), a systematic exploration of family of origin variables, such as interaction patterns and alcohol use, may provide insights for teacher educators as they strive to continuously improve programming. And improving such programming is important. Evidence has accrued that teacher education coursework sometimes fails to influence deeply held beliefs and attitudes about teaching and learning that teacher candidates bring with them to preparation programs (James, 2008). If teacher education course work truly has this deficit, then perhaps teacher educators need deeper understanding of who opts into their programs so that courses and clinical experiences can be constructed that cause change. …

Field of study: Education