Episode 103: Empowering the Next Generation — The Crucial Integration of Soft Skills in K-12 Education

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and take the quiz today. Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped with to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This podcast is at the intersection between education research and parental actions. If you're looking to find out more about the current trends, issues and themes in education that could affect you or your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and and advocate for your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education topics is important to you, so keep listening. On this episode, I'll be discussing why teaching soft skills to school aged children is a necessity. No doubt you're aware of employers who are looking to hire people with excellent soft skills skills like problem solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and time management. These skills are often the determining factor in whether a person gets hired or not. For students, though, a key part of their success in future careers will be dependent on mastery of these soft skills. I explore what's involved in teaching soft skills to school age to children. Given that Jen Z students need help developing traits that were once thought to be second nature, I'll also highlight action steps you can take to reinforce developing these soft skills. Let's untangle this Although there is no fully agreed upon universal set of soft skills, soft skills comprise the appropriate attitudes, behaviors, and dispositions that foster relationships and interpersonal skills. These skills also include the ability to lead effectively and to make ethical and moral decisions. Social emotional learning is a component of soft skills, but soft skills encompass a bit more. Soft skills such as management or developing attention to detail, have a broader practical application, and are general aspects of SEL curricula. Soft skills include, but are not limited to the attitude, coachability, collaboration, communication, initiative, persistence, problem solving, professionalism, self discipline, teamwork, time management, and work ethics. Now this list provides the type of skills that young people need to be better prepared for the future. I would also add two more soft skills to this list. One is grit, the tendency to sustain interest in and put effort toward long term goals that can extend for years or even decades. The second soft skill that I would include would be self control, which is the regulation of behavioral, emotional, and attitude impulses that tend to be short term in nature. Soft skills are related to emotional intelligence traits like personal connections, empathy, emotional control, and integrity. They also are referred to as employability skills because these skills are needed to interact appropriately with others and impact workforce retention. These employability skills apply to blue collar and white collar workers. National level academic leaders recognized these employability skills as a necessary element to the curriculum design for K12 schools. High schools invested in character education, which is also another term for soft skills, historically have had this type of education in informal processes often referred to as hidden curriculum. Character education is defined by the United States Department of Education as the teaching of responsibility, respect, justice, citizenship, and ethical values. These are respectful behaviors, yet the hidden curriculum typically ignores employability skills such as problem solving, ownership, and reactionary behaviors. High schools are usually left to implement strategies with limited resources that could support soft skill programming, intervention, and assessment of student acquisition. The discussion around improving workforce readiness hinges on fostering the skills necessary to be a highly effective employee, and it begins at an early stage while students are still learning in K12 settings. Even though most teachers are aware of these skills and know that they are necessary for 21st century workforce employees, many teachers don't include opportunities for students to engage in authentic application of these skills during classroom activities. Workforce readiness skills and or 21st century workforce skills include not only a mastery of content knowledge in the foundational academic disciplines, but also involves a complex array of knowledge skills and dispositions that are necessary to be successful and to positively contribute to postsecondary educational and employment environments. These 21st century workforce skills are important and students need opportunities to develop and demonstrate competencies of content standards by applying formal problem solving methods and workforce development skills. P21 a non profit organization created a framework to outline the skills students need to be competitive in the future workforce. There are four major themes in this framework. They include 1 key subjects or content knowledge and 21st century themes, 2 life and career skills, 3 information media and technology skills and 4 learning and innovation skills. One of the best strategies for teaching 21st century skills is to make the learning experience relevant, experiential this also turns out to be one of the greatest challenges for classroom teachers because increasing student engagement in activities that help prepare them for the future workforce is a continuous challenge. A key reason why this is a challenge is because many teachers receive their teaching license through traditional pathways and haven't had any industry work experience, so this makes it difficult for them to create authentic and relevant connections for students to learn these 21st century skills. Some teachers participate in teacher externships to provide this industry level experience and integrate that experience into learning activities in the classroom. There are several different forms of communication that are necessary in workforce environments and these include written communication, oral communication, and digital communication. Developing these communication skills in K12 students requires being intentional and authentic in designing lessons so that students engage in problem solving activities that require the use of effective communication as part of the P21 framework. Essential elements of communication for 21st century learning include the ability to articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written, and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts Listen effectively in order to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes, and intentions Use communication for a range of purposes such as to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade utilize multiple media and technologies and know how to judge their effectiveness as well as assess their impact. Communicate effectively in diverse environments including multilingual environments. By engaging students in communication focused learning activities in their K12 experience, students will be better prepared to be successful in the future workforce. Knowledge can be found on any Internet connected device and because of this, what students know matters a lot less than what they can do with what they know. They need to know how to solve problems creatively and utilize skills like critical thinking, communication, and collaboration in order to apply their academic knowledge. Knowledge One way to give students the opportunity to experience work in the real world is for them to volunteer at an organization that is of interest to them. This would offer the students experiences in training, communication, collaboration, and other skills that would support the development of soft skills, including the skills of punctuality or appropriate workplace attire and behavior. Soft skills are also referred to as skills necessary for 21st century learning. These skills need to be discreetly integrated into the context of key subjects and need to be applied across all content areas. Schools that Excel in teaching 21st century skills have five main characteristics. Student Agency the school supports student aspirations and provides opportunities for building agency. Have you had a chance to check out my interactive expert on my website? There are some great conversations and questions going on there. You can check it out atmenything again. Check out the questions and conversations happening there at Ask Me Anything distributed leadership of school leaders and administrators a climate of achievement wherein the school has acclimated success, recognition, and high expectations an engaged community and the application of evidence and research. In addition to these several schools that have implemented soft skills into their curriculum, there are a number of centers and organizations that serve to strengthen students soft skills. These organizations include the Hewlett foundation through its Deeper Learning Initiative, which strives to teach students to apply their learning in the real world. Another program is ED Leader 21, which is a national network of school and district leaders that are focused on integrating the four C's critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity into education. Soft skills tend to be objective and they are challenging to teach and assess. For primary and secondary education in this country, funding has been inconsistent for soft skills training. Soft skills training has also been referred to as character education and may be taught in some US Public schools, yet it's rarely taught in a consistent manner across all states. There's no federal law that addresses character education and soft skills. For the most part, K12 public education mainly defaults soft skills training to post high school experiences in life, the workforce, or higher education. Research indicates that 80% of achievement is determined by soft skills. One of the challenges of implementing soft skills into a school's curriculum is how those soft skills attainment will be measured. There is value in having measures of soft skills that are simple and close to the classroom. Is there one specific soft skill that should be taught well? That depends because what skills are taught reflect the values and goals of the school. A military school will have a different set of priorities for soft skills compared to a school for the performing arts. Also, the answer depends on the age of the student and the student's particular areas of strengths and weakness. For example, adolescents have different needs and younger students and students who are already competent in a particular category of soft skills will have different needs than those students who are not Knowing which students and what a particular school system or classroom will need. As far as soft skill training requires conscious and thoughtful decisions by teachers and school leaders. These ascensions are foundational to everything else and will drive curriculum management and evaluation of soft skills education. There are four categories of soft skills that most leaders, teachers, and parents would agree are the responsibility of the schools to monitor and develop. These include social skills, self management, academic soft skills, and approaches to learning. Social skills include how a student interacts with other students as observed by teachers, staff, and other adults. Self management refers to the observable manifestations of self regulation like the student's ability to take control over what would otherwise be automatic reactions of planning, focusing attention, reframing experiences, and using mental tools. These types of cognitive processes, while not publicly observable, are noticed when they are absent. For example, when a student blurts out responses to a question asked in the classroom, this suggests a lack of thoughtfulness. Academic soft skills are both social and cognitive. They comprise carrying out additional tasks like the ability to work independently. The final category of approaches to learning includes things like the student's engagement in school, their pleasure in learning, and anxiety about performance. These four categories can be easily observed by teachers and other adults who are regularly around students. It's easy to observe whether a student participates in discussions with his or her peers, cooperates with others, maintains attention to tasks, brings required materials to school, or is anxious or fearful. Brookings developed a soft Skills Report Card to support teachers in thoughtfully observing students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in terms of soft skills. It's also useful for parents since it can be sent home at the end of each quarter with the average score for the student in each of the four categories and with notes from the teacher as necessary. Schools already send report cards home, so parents are used to receiving these. This soft skills report card could provide information to parents on the website that directly maps to the items on the report card. In this way, both parents and schools could help build soft skills. The idea is to measure soft skills that are naturally occurring, easily observed, relevant to express mission and the instructional goals of the teacher or school, and be useful for feedback in the classroom and for parents. While the number of high school students who graduate on time has increased, they possess the requisite practical skills and training to start a career. Yet they graduate with a soft skills deficit, and this soft skills gap is widening at the latest. Soft skills training should start early. In high school, people develop soft skills through socialization, usually from parents or other adults, learning the values, attitudes, and actions through interactions with others. Soft skills help people interact more effectively. They are learned behaviors that can be enhanced through training and opportunities in which students can exercise these talents over time. Educators, parents, and employers must make the teaching and learning of soft skills a critical focus. It's not enough to just teach students how to get a job, they also need to be taught how how to keep a job, and soft skills play a significant role in that. High school students have partially been harmed in terms of developing soft skills with the introduction of communication devices. These devices take away face to face communication, which is necessary to teach students how to respond to situations. Research indicates that the Increasing use of technology has demonstrated a negative impact on the development of critical social skills and students ability to read and understand nonverbal emotional cues. This is why it's important to emphasize soft skills training to students. There are three factors that seem to hinder high school students learning of communication, critical thinking, and problem solving. They include the structure of the US Public education system, the complexity of the skills themselves, and the teacher's competence to teach these skills in conjunction with their required course material. Yet, integrating soft skills into the curriculum without losing the core requirements for a course may be difficult, but it is doable. Soft skills are necessary for all courses in the curriculum, especially technology and engineering courses. Let's face it, there's more to preparing a student to enter a college level program in technology or engineering than what's covered by national standards. Students need to possess soft skills in order to be successful at the college level. The soft skills that say to be most pertinent for preparing students for college careers in technology and engineering include a positive work ethic, a willingness to learn, a positive attitude, language proficiency, flexibility, self discipline, and teamwork. And of course, as I mentioned before, communication skills are an essential competency for high school students who plan to enter engineering or technology programs. These programs should require their students to have competency in written communications, verbal communications, reading, and honesty in the classroom. Teachers could design activities that require students to work in teams, organize their thoughts, communicate with their team members, solve problems, present their findings, or orally and reflect on their success through a written document. Perhaps a more thoughtful and balanced approach to education is required to ensure that students graduate from high school with both a rigorous academic content knowledge as well as the ability to apply that knowledge successfully in higher education or the workplace. So what are some of these efforts that are being made to bring soft skills skills training into K12? Several schools have begun advocating for the integration of soft skills into K12 curriculum. For example, VA adopted workplace readiness Skills, a program based on research that is a part of all career and technical education courses across the state. Another example would be in Georgia, or where soft skills became a prominent topic of discussion to the point where legislators created a bill that would allow high school students to earn a certificate in soft skills. These skills would include, but not be limited to, skills relating to punctuality, ability to learn, and an ability to work in teams. The development of soft skills requires a lifelong approach to maximize opportunities, opportunities for these skills to be practiced, refined, and refreshed over time. That's why the embedding of soft skills begins at the P20 school level from preschool to primary to middle school so that the key foundations are established that prepare students for post secondary success. Soft skills would be framed as complementing academic skills rather than competing with academic skills. Both of these are necessary for future success, whether that's in college or in the workforce. The bottom line is soft skills matter. I know that you're more interested in applying what you learn rather than just absorbing information. With that in mind, how does what I've just discussed apply to you? Here are the action steps you can take regarding this topic. The main actions that you can take would be 1. Ensure that your children interact with their peers and older relatives to develop the communication skills they need for future workforce success. 2. Encourage your children to participate in sports or other activities that involve teams so that they can develop teamwork skills necessary for college and work. 3. Have your children volunteer in organizations that they feel aligned with so that they can develop or enhance communication skills, leadership skills, work ethic, and appropriate workplace behavior. All of these suggestions could complement whatever soft skills are integrated within your child's school or classroom curriculum. If your child's teacher hasn't integrated soft skills into his or her curriculum yet, using these suggestions could help your child get ahead of the game by participating in environments that support soft skills development. Here are this episode's takeaways. Soft skills are related to emotional intelligence traits like personal connections, empathy, emotional control, and integrity. They are also referred to as employability skills because these skills are needed to interact appropriately with others and can impact workforce retention. These employability skills apply to both blue collar and white collar workers. National level academic leaders recognize that these employability skills are a necessary element in the curriculum design for K12 schools. What students know matters a lot less than what they can do with what they know. They need to know how to solve problems creatively and to utilize skills like critical thinking, communication, and collaboration in order to apply their academic knowledge. Soft skills are also referred to as skills necessary for 21st century learning. These skills need to be discreetly integrated into the context of key subjects and need to be applied across all content areas. Being an effective communicator, having a strong personal work ethic, and being a lifelong learner are additional soft skills that many employers are looking for in prospective job seekers. There are four categories of soft skills that most leaders, teachers, and parents would agree are the responsibility of the schools to monitor and develop. These include social skills, self management, academic soft skills, and approaches to learning. Soft skills tend to be objective and they are challenging to teach and assess. For primary and secondary education in this country, funding has been inconsistent for soft skills training. Soft skills training has also been referred to as character education and may be taught in some US Public schools, yet it is rarely taught in a consistent manner across all states. There's no federal law that addresses character education or soft skills. For the most part, K12 public education mainly defaults soft skills training to post high school experiences in life, the workforce, or higher education. Research indicates that 80% of achievement is determined by soft skills. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, go to my podcast website@k12educationuntangled.buzzsprout.com and leave me a text message about how how you're enjoying my show. That's K12 education. Untangled.buzzsprout.com Go to the episode description and click on the Send me a text message link. Again, it's k12educationuntangled.buzzsprout.com and leave me a text message today. If you don't want to miss out on any of the content that I've provided or or what I will provide next, then be sure to subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Foreign subscriber. 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