"Soft" Skills

"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.