Soft skills in education are often unfortunately overshadowed by an emphasis on hard skills. Yet “soft” attributes like excellent communication and emotional intelligence can often impact success even more than “hard” subject knowledge. Furthermore, in today’s rapidly evolving world, the ability to adapt, collaborate, and learn new things is necessary to thrive. Teaching these and other similar soft skills is an essential aspect of a holistic, well-rounded education that can have a transformative impact on students’ lives.
What Are Hard Skills and Soft Skills?
Hard skills, like the ability to code or use a specific piece of equipment, are often easy to assess and quantify. Soft skills, which can span from a person’s attitude to their ability to resolve conflicts, are harder to measure. Job interviewers often attempt to gauge a candidate’s soft skills by asking open-ended behavioral questions and giving psychometric assessments.
Many people believe soft skills cannot be taught, assuming that great leaders, communicators, and creators are born rather than made. Yet studies show that these qualities are teachable. For instance, coaching has been shown to boost emotional skills, and there are established pedagogies for improving critical and creative thinking skills. Furthermore, by modeling a growth mindset, educators can empower students by framing these abilities as attainable through focused intention and effort. These are just a few examples of ways that soft skills can be deliberately taught.
Soft Skills in the Job Market
Recruitment experts often cite attributes like creativity, curiosity, and communication as important factors to determine if an applicant will succeed in a role. Jobs are becoming highly competitive, with increasing numbers of qualified candidates to choose from. A degree or certificate can indicate hard skills like business knowledge or academic writing, but to stand out in the market, it is vital to also display “soft”’ traits and competencies.
The skills recruiters seek vary depending on the field of work. Just like a software engineer requires different academic knowledge than a nurse, they also need to demonstrate different soft skills. Extraversion is more helpful when talking to patients every day than it is when writing code, for example. And a copywriter is more likely to be asked to show creative flair than an accountant, though both roles require skills like time management and relationship-building. Being an independent self-motivator is an excellent soft skill for most positions, but if your role requires heavy teamwork, collaborative social skills may be deemed more important, for instance. In every profession, being able to demonstrate soft skills is a crucial element of success.
Soft Skills in Life
Beyond the workforce, soft skills tend to apply to all aspects of life. Relationship experts frequently cite communication and teamwork skills as foundational for sustained interpersonal harmony, whether romantic, familial, or platonic. When young adults leave home and begin to build their own lives, they will rely upon these type of less tangible skills to navigate unexpected circumstances. By emphasizing soft skills in education, teachers can set their students up not only for material success but also for enduring life satisfaction and happiness.
Teaching Soft Skills
There are many tools to teach soft skills. Embedding soft skill development into the culture of a classroom can elevate the learning experience for all involved. For example, reinforcing personal responsibility and work ethic is known to foster environments where students are more likely to take ownership of their studies. If these skills are taught successfully, students will maintain them as character traits that shine through in their working lives and beyond.
Critical Thinking
In this digital age, students are inundated with constant streams of media and communication. Amidst a flood of targeted messaging and information, it is more crucial than ever for young people to develop critical thinking skills. A great way to actively hone these attributes in the classroom is by inviting students to analyze their assumptions. Ask questions such as: “Why is this the best answer?” and “What counter-arguments could someone use to challenge my ideas?” Through self-reflective analysis, students can become more discerning with information they hear from various sources, as they gain the habit of deconstructing thoughts and ideas.
Critical thinking skills can be introduced in many different subjects. Imaginative literature, historical sources, and news articles are all examples of texts that can be cross-examined, questioned, and challenged through rigorous critical thinking exercises. Presenting a variety of opinions and worldviews when studying any topic can give rise to healthy debate, challenging students to consider multiple viewpoints before solidifying their own.
Teamwork and Communication
The ability to collaborate is key. Education settings provide many opportunities for collaboration, helping students to activate the wide skill set that constitutes teamwork. Students who seem like natural listeners should be gently encouraged to take the lead in presentations, while those who tend to dominate discussions should be challenged to listen to other perspectives.
One important communication skill is active listening, and this can be taught through assigning roles in communication-based tasks. Students should take turns to act as “listeners” and “speakers.” When someone is talking, the “listener” must actively engage by maintaining appropriate eye contact, taking notes on interesting points, asking open questions, and giving genuine responses. Once the task is complete, the students should switch roles and then give each other feedback. This gives them hands-on experience with vital soft skills.
Creativity
Creative thinking is the source of innovation and progress. Students’ creativity can be nurtured through project-based work. You can structure lessons around real-world problems to encourage innovative thinking. For example, the topic of climate change encourages students to make connections across different disciplines. They might combine a science-based inquiry into the causes of global warming with creative writing skills to persuade the audience of the need for change.
Another way to promote creativity is through introducing topics with open-ended questions, encouraging a mode of “possibility thinking,” rather than focusing solely on rote learning prescribed information. Posing challenging questions, such as asking students to define a difficult concept in their own words, supports active learning. Encourage divergent methods and approaches, welcoming a variety of responses and guiding students to make connections between diverse ideas.
Organization
No matter your profession, the ability to manage time and space is essential to task completion. Organization and time management are crucial soft skills in education, as learning is often structured around deadlines for exams and assignments. Guiding students through long-term projects with milestones and smaller goals will help them to develop planning skills. Creating checklists and organizers for assignments models the ability to prioritize tasks. Teachers can also reinforce the importance of being organized through consistent communication and setting clear expectations for students to follow.
Conclusion
There are many ways to nurture soft skills in education. At Educate. Radiate. Elevate., we recognize the importance of equipping students, especially those in marginalized communities, with not only academic knowledge but also crucial soft skills that pave the way for lifelong success. We are committed to helping underserved students through teaching interpersonal skills and critical thinking as well as academic knowledge. Our tutors provide no-cost student-centered learning. You can donate to enable us to continue educating youth in both soft and hard skills, empowering them to thrive.
