The seven skills that every student needs to survive in the world today. These seven skills were adapted by Tony Wagner, while most of them take a heavy influence on his I added some of my own based on my experiences.
Resilience. Few people have resilience, many have commitment and many have goals and will strive to achieve them. What happens though when diversity forms, obstacles rise and the goal seems like it is no where near become reality? When we have resilience we can go through the tough times, we can keep our heads up and progress through the tough times, resilience is what stops us from quitting. If everyone was able to develop resilience before leaving high school they would be able to stick with their goals when things get tough. Everyone can stand tall when the times are good, those who can stand when they have been knocked down, those are the ones who will survive.
Communication. Recently I found myself in the same room as two different principals and they were both having conversations on their cell phones. What I heard next was very interesting; “This is what I am hearing, would you say that is correct”, “Would this be a correct way to summarize your point”. Both were very clear in the way that they responded to the person on the other line. They were both very strong communicators, they were focused on the message being sent and received, they were not worried about the medium of communication they were concerned with what communication is really for: the message. I think that we need to train students how to clearly send a message, whether it be through text, phone, face to face, mail, as long as they know how to create and send messages to their audience with clarity then they will survive in the world.
Balance. There are people who choose to work 15 hour days. There are people who choose to work 5 hour days. Both may or may not be in balance, what matters is that they make sure they are doing what they need to do to be the most productive. If someone is working 15 hours and are never around to see their family then life will be out of balance and sooner or later they will crash. The same works for someone who is not putting in enough time. We have to find the ratio of being at work and being able to live our life outside work. With balance we can live our best lives and perform our best at all aspects.
Creative thinking. If we run across problems and we need to have the ability to solve it. Solutions come in many different ways and forms. As we come into a new world of web integration into our lives then we will have to design schools to produce students that will be able to make solutions to problems that no one has seen before. How do we teach kids how to solve problems that no one has seen before? Give them the skill that they can solve all problems through creative critical thinking.
Asses data. With the internet going to be part of all of lives in a matter of time, there is going to be unlimited amount of data to access. The challenge that will be proposed to our students will be what data is reliable and what is fiction. They are going to have to sift through massive amounts of data options to find out their answer. We need to teach them how to get what they need.
Collaboration. Two heads are better than one. While this may be true what they don’t tell you is how hard it can be to work with a team. Many times people bring their own baggage, experiences, and ideas to the table for team projects. Students need to come out of school knowing how to effectively work and produce when it comes to team work. There are few instances where someone produces something solely by themselves.
Flexibility. Life will give you lemons, sometimes even as a curveball. There are times when life gets flipped upside down. We have to teach students the process of making the best out of every moment. What to do when things are working, how to adapt and adjust to still hit your goals.
These are skills that I think are going to be very important in our future world. I am trying to implement them into my class, but its not easy. Its not easy to design lessons that are contained within the classroom that teach these skills. Sometimes kids will talk about how one of the skills presented itself outside the class, I think that this could be the most authentic way to teach the skills. We have to show them the introduction into the steps and then we have to teach them how to recognize them in their lives as they grow.
One way I plan to measure success is to have the students self assess their abilities through the school year. As we move on how have their grown, so may come in with different skill sets and some may need different skills to be successful. When they leave they will know how to perform each skill and will know how to keep improving. This can be done by a simple reflection written down and then also include it into our exhibitions where students state what skill they used while working on their projects.
Resilience. Few people have resilience, many have commitment and many have goals and will strive to achieve them. What happens though when diversity forms, obstacles rise and the goal seems like it is no where near become reality? When we have resilience we can go through the tough times, we can keep our heads up and progress through the tough times, resilience is what stops us from quitting. If everyone was able to develop resilience before leaving high school they would be able to stick with their goals when things get tough. Everyone can stand tall when the times are good, those who can stand when they have been knocked down, those are the ones who will survive.
Communication. Recently I found myself in the same room as two different principals and they were both having conversations on their cell phones. What I heard next was very interesting; “This is what I am hearing, would you say that is correct”, “Would this be a correct way to summarize your point”. Both were very clear in the way that they responded to the person on the other line. They were both very strong communicators, they were focused on the message being sent and received, they were not worried about the medium of communication they were concerned with what communication is really for: the message. I think that we need to train students how to clearly send a message, whether it be through text, phone, face to face, mail, as long as they know how to create and send messages to their audience with clarity then they will survive in the world.
Balance. There are people who choose to work 15 hour days. There are people who choose to work 5 hour days. Both may or may not be in balance, what matters is that they make sure they are doing what they need to do to be the most productive. If someone is working 15 hours and are never around to see their family then life will be out of balance and sooner or later they will crash. The same works for someone who is not putting in enough time. We have to find the ratio of being at work and being able to live our life outside work. With balance we can live our best lives and perform our best at all aspects.
Creative thinking. If we run across problems and we need to have the ability to solve it. Solutions come in many different ways and forms. As we come into a new world of web integration into our lives then we will have to design schools to produce students that will be able to make solutions to problems that no one has seen before. How do we teach kids how to solve problems that no one has seen before? Give them the skill that they can solve all problems through creative critical thinking.
Asses data. With the internet going to be part of all of lives in a matter of time, there is going to be unlimited amount of data to access. The challenge that will be proposed to our students will be what data is reliable and what is fiction. They are going to have to sift through massive amounts of data options to find out their answer. We need to teach them how to get what they need.
Collaboration. Two heads are better than one. While this may be true what they don’t tell you is how hard it can be to work with a team. Many times people bring their own baggage, experiences, and ideas to the table for team projects. Students need to come out of school knowing how to effectively work and produce when it comes to team work. There are few instances where someone produces something solely by themselves.
Flexibility. Life will give you lemons, sometimes even as a curveball. There are times when life gets flipped upside down. We have to teach students the process of making the best out of every moment. What to do when things are working, how to adapt and adjust to still hit your goals.
These are skills that I think are going to be very important in our future world. I am trying to implement them into my class, but its not easy. Its not easy to design lessons that are contained within the classroom that teach these skills. Sometimes kids will talk about how one of the skills presented itself outside the class, I think that this could be the most authentic way to teach the skills. We have to show them the introduction into the steps and then we have to teach them how to recognize them in their lives as they grow.
One way I plan to measure success is to have the students self assess their abilities through the school year. As we move on how have their grown, so may come in with different skill sets and some may need different skills to be successful. When they leave they will know how to perform each skill and will know how to keep improving. This can be done by a simple reflection written down and then also include it into our exhibitions where students state what skill they used while working on their projects.