"Soft" Skills
“Soft” skills are the skills you need to be able to work
effectively with others, not just in schools- but in life. I do not like the
term “soft,” it implies that these skills are not as important as other skills.
They should be considered Professional Skills.
I was given the
opportunity to be a part of NISD strategic summit in the Spring of 2018; there
were representatives from the district faculty, our students, parents, the
community, as well as from businesses in our area. One topic continued to come
up from both students and employers- professional skills. Both groups felt that
the students coming out of high school are not prepared in this area. If you
google the following: “soft skills,” “professional skills,” “the 6 Cs” you will
note that there aren’t just educational articles that populate- business
articles are there as well. The workforce is lacking in these skills coming out
of both high school and college.
There are six skills that the business world looks for when
looking to hire employees.
Critical Thinking
– The ability to take information and analyze it, manipulate it and apply it to
new situations.
Communication-
The way in which you share information.
Collaboration-
Being able to work with others towards a common goal.
Creativity- The
ability to think of new and innovative ways to complete a task or to present information.
Core/Content
Competency- Content knowledge.
Character
Development – The ethics and morals with which a person is instilled.
What teacher is not looking for the same skills in their
students? These skills are not something we are born knowing; they are not
innate- they must be taught. They are not TEKS; they are not in the Scope and
Sequence. We need to look at this as not “another thing,” but as skills to keep
in mind when we are developing our lessons. If our goal is for students to own
their learning, be life-long learners, and to reach the high expectations we
have for them; then developing the whole child needs to be a priority.
How to teach these skills will be a topic for our PLCs.
There is not a magic strategy answer for this; however, an excellent place to
start is to give our students the opportunities to work cooperatively.
Genuinely working in cooperative learning groups give students chances to
practice these skills under our watchful eye. When we design lessons for our
students we need to keep these skills in mind, spotlight them. We should be
modeling these skills daily with students. Just like we model our thinking, we
need to model these strategies in everyday lessons. Point them out and talk to
the students about what these are and why they are important. Looking at them
one at a time does not mean they are not working on the others, but that they
are getting feedback from us on one particular skill in order to strengthen the
skill. These skills need to be worked on just like any other ritual or
procedure: practice, practice, practice!
Let’s look at the second question, “Is it appropriate for
our students to learn them?” Of Course, it is! If we look at tackling this
challenge as something that is vital to our students becoming successful, we
will see the importance. Hattie says, “…the foundation for successful
cooperative learning in later years can be laid in elementary school.” (Hattie
& Klaus Zierer, 2018) Is it easy? No, but what we do is never easy. By
looking for ways to embed opportunities in our day to learn these skills, our
students will be able to “engage in a culture of learning that prepares all
students to navigate the future confidently.” (Northwest ISD, 2018)
If we want our students to own their learning, these skills
are a great way to help them on the path of becoming Life-Long Learners.
