What are the top skills employers demand? Communication skills, judgement and decision making, active listening to name a few. These skills are referred to as soft skills, or non-cognitive skills that are not measured by a cognitive or academic test, like IQ, for example.

In an age when our economy demands more college grads in order to fill the jobs of the future and to be globally competitive, the answer has been to make our classes harder and rank students, schools, and teachers by the scores students earn on their standardized test. Put more effort behind increasing IQ and get a better prepared workforce, right?

Wrong. Little to no research gives evidence that more rigorous classes or standardized tests will lead to more college graduates, according to the review, “Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners.” In fact, studies show the best indicator of success in college is not the difficulty level of classes a student took in high school or their standardized test scores, but rather their course grades, GPA, and class rank.

Researchers argue these standings are much more indicative of a student’s academic and economic potential because they measure, in part, the transferable and non-cognitive skills a student possesses:

“The prevailing interpretation is that, in addition to measuring students’ content knowledge and core academic skills, grades also reflect the degree to which students have demonstrated a range of academic behaviors, attitudes, and strategies that are critical for success in school and in later life, including study skills, attendance, work habits, time management, help-seeking behaviors, metacognitive strategies, and social and academic problem-solving skills that allow students to successfully manage new environments and meet new academic and social demands. To this list of critical success factors, others have added students’ attitudes about learning, their beliefs about their own intelligence, their self-control and persistence, and the quality of their relationships with peers and adults.”

This is one reason why parents put their kids on a soccer team, students are told to get involved in activities so they can highlight them on their college application,  and job seekers have a place to showcase their extracurricular achievements on their resumes. While there is no direct economic value to a child playing soccer, it is thought of as a social activity where people acquire the non-cognitive, or social and behavioral, skills that are necessary to get along with people at school and in the workplace, learn responsibility to a team, balance school and life, work under pressure, etc.

While classroom time is traditionally thought of as  a time to develop cognitive skills and after-school time is used for non-cognitive, the two skill sets are inextricably linked and don’t need to be exclusive. At LifeBound we train K-12 teachers, professors, advisors, tutors, and staff to use coaching skills to capitalize on the time they have with students and develop these non-cognitive skills for success in school, career, and life.

Through the coaching process, students answer questions and engage in self-reflective activities to mindfully create:

• Vision for what is possible
• Balance in their academic, social, and emotional lives
• Perspectives on the challenges they face and the choices they make
• Accountability to themselves and others
• Fulfillment from making choices that align with core values
• Habits of success to help address their personal strengths and weaknesses

What would your brightest students be capable of if they developed their non-cognitive skills alongside their cognitive? How would your struggling students benefit if they were asked powerful questions and learned to ask themselves powerful questions when they need help?

If you’re in the Denver area, join us on November 1 for a one-day Introduction to Academic Coaching. This training will give you a thorough introduction to the coaching process as well as leave you with coaching skills you can use Monday morning.  If you are interested in LifeBound coming to your area, email me at caroljcarter@lifebound.com for more information.

When you visualize the 21^st century classroom, what do you see? A smartboard on the front wall, iPads in every student’s hands, individualized learning programs on the computer, setting the pace of a lesson while a teacher stands by for questions…

Some classrooms have moved into the digital age, however, the 21^st century classroom is more commonly described as overcrowded and underfunded. The student demographic is diverse with disabled, gifted, English language, impoverished, and enriched learners. Teachers are faced with having to teach to all levels of the classroom, and due to lack of time, resources, and bandwidth, they teach to the students in the middle; often leaving those who are falling behind behind and those who are gifted unchallenged.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released the report “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” inspired by “a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”[i] This report, though controversial, did bring to light educational issues we are still fighting today.

The following are some noteworthy statistics from the 1983 report:

• · Functional illiteracy among minority youth may run as high as 40 percent.
• · The number and proportion of students demonstrating superior achievement on the SATs have dramatically declined.
• · Many 17-year-olds do not possess the “higher order” intellectual skills we should expect from them.
• · There was a steady decline in science achievement scores of the U.S. 17-year-olds as measured by national assessments of science in 1969, 1973, and 1977.
• · Between 1975 and 1980, remedial mathematics courses in public 4-year colleges increased by 72 percent.
• · Too many teachers are being drawn from the bottom quarter of graduating high school and college students.

Sound familiar? Three decades later, minorities are trending toward becoming the majority, while the achievement gap continues to grow; college students are graduating with weak critical thinking skills; students’ competency in STEM subjects aren’t keeping up with the amount of job openings in STEM fields; and teachers are now said to come from the bottom one-third of their class.[ii]

[i] “A Nation at Risk” By The National Commission on Excellence in Education

[ii] “Achievement Gap” http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/achievement-gap/

Since the 1980s, more women than men have been attending college. Since 1996, more women have been attending and graduating from college.¹ A study in 2008 found the male to female ratio for attending college was 43.6 and 56.4, respectively. The gender gap in education continues to widen in favor of women, but why?

The 2011 PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) found a consistent difference between girls’ and boys’ academic achievement in most countries.  Fourth grade girls have a much higher average reading achievement than boys, and their 2011 results continue to show this pattern. In the United States, recent research found that girls had an advantage in reading at all grades, from kindergarten through twelfth grade.  Another study conducted by PISA in 2009 showed that 15-year-old girls performed consistently better in reading than boys.³

In Richard Whitmire’s, “Why Boys Fail,”⁴ he shares the following stats to show the academic gap between boys and girls:

• The average high school grade point average is 3.09 for girls and 2.86 for boys. Boys are almost twice as likely as girls to repeat a grade.
• Boys are twice as likely to get suspended as girls, and three times as likely to be expelled. Estimates of dropouts vary, but it seems that about one-quarter more boys drop out than girls.
• Among whites, women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 62 percent of master’s degrees. Among blacks, the figures are 66 percent and 72 percent.
• In federal writing tests, 32 percent of girls are considered “proficient” or better. For boys, the figure is 16 percent.

What is causing boys to fall behind? The most widely acknowledged theory is that the K-12 classroom is more favorable to girls. “The world has gotten more verbal. Boys haven’t,” says Whitmire. He argues that the root cause of boys falling behind at school is that the teaching methods aren’t designed to engage the minds of boys. Boredom is an all too familiar side effect of classroom teaching, which leads to frustration and causes boys to showcase behavioral problems and/or dislike going to school.

“Girls use more words. They are heavy on reading and early literacy and more social cooperation,” says author and behavioral psychologist Anthony Rao in the article, “New UGA Study: Their Classroom Demeanors Give Girls a Boost in Grades Over Boys in Classroom.”^5 The same article also lists that boys commonly display worse behavior than girls, which can cause teachers to assign higher grades to girls over boys.

Is there a remedy for this problem? Is the problem academic, social, emotional, or all of the above?

LifeBound’s books are written with the complex world of students in mind. People Smarts for Teenagers asks students to examine boundaries with their peers, strengthen their emotional intelligence, and prepare them with tools they need to be academically successful. Gifts & Talents for Teenagers helps teens start aligning their interests, passions, and strengths into higher education or career choices. Students need a framework that shows what they do in the classroom has applications in the real world.

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Sources:
¹Why Are Women More Interested in Going to College Than Men?” http://www.good.is/posts/why-are-women-more-interested-in-going-to-college-than-men
²PIRLS 2011 International Results in Reading,” <ahref=”http://timss.bc.edu/pirls2011/downloads/P11_IR_FullBook.pdf”>http://timss.bc.edu/pirls2011/downloads/P11_IR_FullBook.pdf
³ New Reading Standards Aim to Prep Kids for College But at What Cost, “http://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169798643/new-reading-standards-aim-to-prep-kids-for-college-but-at-what-cost”
⁴“The Boys Have Fallen Behind,”http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28kristof.html?_r=0

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2012/02/16/the-male-female-ratio-in-college/

⁵ New UGA Study: Their Classroom Demeanors Give Girls a Boost in Grades Over Boys in Classroom

The ability to write well is meant to evolve naturally from a few simple sentences on a first-grader’s notebook to the polished draft of a senior paper, and when it does the entire school experience tends to proceed naturally as well. In the workforce, good writing is the hallmark of a professional that can express himself clearly and display one’s company/product in an attractive way. This has only become more true in today’s world, where email, text messaging, and social media have taken over many of the communications that used to be performed by phone or in person.

In fact, the changing role of writing in the world today has many teachers wondering how they should adapt their teaching to make it more relevant to today’s writing needs, personally and professionally. Susan Lucille Davis, a writing teacher with over 30 years of experience, expresses this question in her blog, “Teaching Authentic Writing in a Socially Mediated World,” but admits that she herself doesn’t have the whole answer. She and many of her colleagues agree, however, that the answer would need to address and prove relevant towards improving writing in the following categories:

• Text messages to friends/colleagues.
• Captions for photos that express important information.
• Questions that probe and dig for what matters.
• Status updates that share a mood or point of view.
• Comments on interactive websites that continue the conversation.
• Product reviews that are convincing and detailed.
• Emails written with the appropriate tone and length.
• Collaborative documentation online, which requires more than simply dividing the work.
• Tweets that add valuable insight to an online conversation.
• Blogs that allow ideas and information to percolate over time.
• Citizen journalism that is current and relevant.
• Storyboards and scripts for the many different types of videos being made today.
• Proposals to make, do, or change something.
• Process analyses that help examine the way things work.
• Syntheses that help organize disparate resources and media.
• Reflections that share transparently and probe thoughtfully.

This rather daunting list points out a clear gap between traditional writing education and the evolution of writing needs in the world today. At the same time, it makes clear just how important writing skills have become in a world where every individual is a user and a maker, a consumer and a producer. The role of writing has expanded to the point where there’s hardly a place left in American society for someone who isn’t fluent in text.

Recent statistics support this idea. According to various studies cited by Gene A. Budig in his article, “Studies Show the Importance of Writing Skills,” 8 out of 10 parents believe writing is more important now than it was 20 years ago. 86% of teens believe that good writing predicts future success, and 82% express a wish to write better and for teachers to address the topic more in their classrooms. The highest percentage of teens who believed this came from minority and low-income groups.

We don’t need a study to know trends in technology have expanded the role writing plays in our lives. People of all demographics and ages text, instant message, and email every day — many times a day. We’ve hung up on using verbal communication, and turned to the more convenient, efficient, and, arguably, most unsocial mode of communication: writing.

That doesn’t mean we are all better writers for it. We’ve seen the birth of textlish, like LOL, BRB, YOLO, which has become so standard in the English language that it crossed over into verbal communication. Twenty-first century writers come with autocorrect, which knows what you want to say faster than you can type it (sometimes). Social media has unveiled our friends that don’t know the difference between there, their, and they’re. Writing may be more prominent in our daily tasks, but it doesn’t mean the art and craft of writing, critical thinking, grammar or self reflection has become more prominent with it.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/05/record-shares-of-young-adults-have-finished-both-high-school-and-college/4/#section-3-high-school-completion-among-young-adults

More U.S. students are graduating from high school and college than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The increase in grads can be attributed in large to our changed economy. Since the 2007 recession, students have been drilled on the importance of having an education in order to land a job in a highly competitive job market. Adults have also returned to school to gain higher pay, change careers, or increase their level of education after a layoff.

The Pew Research Center analysis found:

• 90% of young adults (ages 25-29) in the U.S. have a high school education.
• 63% of young adults (ages 25-29) in the U.S. have completed at least some college.

The analysis also found significant changes in college populations over the last 30 years. In the 1970s:

• 36% of Americans said a college education is “very important.” (1978)
• 17% of the college-age population were non-white. (1971)

In the 2000s:

• 75% of Americans said a college education is “very important.” (2010)
• 44% of the college-age population is non-white. (2012)

Though the growing and diversifying population of high school and college grads are stabilizing us at home, experts question if it will be enough to keep our position as a global leader in higher education. Many developed countries are simultaneously working toward becoming a global power in higher education, and have a faster annual growth rate for graduates than the U.S.

As long as we keep growing minds in this knowledge-based economy, we can keep our edge and compete with other developed countries for the best innovators, jobs, schools, and teachers. As we prepare more students for the world of work than ever before, we also need to help them find their uniqueness in an evermore competitive and global workforce. We must emphasis entrepreneurial, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills. We must help students fuse the gap between high school or college graduation and a career. Now that we have more students dedicated to earning an education, we must work to give all equal access to the best education and help them make connections between their education and the rest of their lives.

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Sources:

“Record Shares of Young Adults Have Finished Both High School and College,” By Richard Fry and Kim Parker. 5 November 2012. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/05/record-shares-of-young-adults-have-finished-both-high-school-and-college/#overview

What makes a person successful? Some attribute their success to hard work, while others attribute it to luck, mentors, brains, or social skills.

In a recent three-part series on NPR, people from all rungs of the economic ladder are interviewed on why they either are or are not financially “successful.” In the first installment, Bob Hatley, president and CEO of Paragon Commercial Bank, tells his tale of going from a childhood with limited means to a millionaire. Hatley says: “People who use their family as an excuse not to achieve, I have no patience with.”

Hatley was determined to be successful and modeled himself after the successful people he looked up to. From watching the behavior of successful people, he discovered that “interpersonal skills trump brains.” Knowing how to communicate and connect with people helped him climb to the top.

However, even though interpersonal skills are — and always have been — a way to make your place in the world, schools do not emphasize how crucial these skills are to have in order to be successful beyond school. Learning soft skills, or even a second language, take a backseat to increasing IQ, test taking, and reading volumes of archaic textbooks.

Today’s grads need the soft skills to find a job, keep a job, and network with the people who can help them meet their professional goals. Even though today’s students grew up texting, instant messaging, and social networking, it doesn’t mean writing a professional email comes as second nature. Today’s youth may have over 600 friends on Facebook, but it doesn’t mean they learned how to network face to face, over the phone, or through written correspondence. Schools may teach courses in history, math, reading, and science, but not teach basic problem solving, critical thinking, social, and emotional skills. As the workforce changes and more new grads become entrepreneurs, small business owners, and start-up founders, it’s a necessity that they learn the social intelligence they need to navigate the working world.

We need to send grads into the world of work with both academic and social knowledge. My books Critical & Creative Thinking for Teenagers and People Smarts for Teenagers are great classroom companions that teach teens the question asking skills they need to ace an AP trigonometry class or to diffuse an argument between peers at lunch.

It’s worth noting interpersonal skills are not the only way the interviewees say they became moderately to highly successful (in financial terms). Family is a big influence on success. So is staying out of debt. Everyone has their own success story; but for many successful individuals, the journey was a social event.

Read NPR’s complete series starting here: “Want to Be Rich? Be Lucky, Know the Right People.” 

By Michael Vladeck

We all want freedom, and children do need rules (some more than others).  When applied well, they act as guidelines that help them develop in healthy ways… lest they recreate a Lord Of The Flies reality that you have to parent to.  They have a place, yet eventually some of these rules you impose will add great stress to the relationship – so learning how to be wise with rules is critical and essential to maintain the health of your relationship.

Kids break rules for many reasons – think of yourself when you were their age:  You didn’t agree with the rule, you felt it was unfair, what you wanted was worth the consequence of breaking the rule, you wanted to upset your parents as revenge for feeling hurt, or maybe you simply forgot about the rule – and the list can go on. Ultimately, however, breaking rules is most often a symptom of the broken health of a relationship – because there is a either a lack of deep understanding of each other, there is a lack of connection between you, or there is a personal lack of connection within yourselves.  Tracing the reason for why rules are broken almost always leads directly to some deep need or feeling that is lurking around alone and unmet.  It leads to sacred places where true understanding, compassion and connection are born from.  Breaking a rule opens up an opportunity to explore what is really going on within you as a parent, in your relationship with your child, or  inside the heart and mind of your child.

Rules may be important, but without a strong relationship in place, they are mostly ineffective.  When you feel enforcing a rule is necessary, but your child does not, it’s important to try to help them understand why it is that you feel it wise for them to follow.  Certainly, especially in the teen years of asserting independence, many rules will get challenged and broken… but doing your best to create understanding is a critical first step.  And, it’s worth mentioning, saying to them “Because I said so” is setting them up to potentially break the rule, setting them up to most likely not respect you, and certainly setting them up to close you off with resentment and hurt.  You need to go deeper than that.  They deserve it, and eventually, they’ll fight you if you don’t.

Your reason for rules is never superficial, it goes deep – expose that.  Model transparency and vulnerability (especially if you wish for your children to do the same).  Before making a power play, connect with the heart – your needs and feelings as a parent that drive your parenting rules.  Hopefully it goes without saying that you need to be very responsible for the rules you create – that they are coming from a healthy place within you, and that you don’t exhibit double standards (unless you can explain why you are doing so in an honest and effective way).

Also, their reason for not wanting to follow a rule goes deep too – this needs to be respected.  Help them see the unseen forces within them that drive their behavior through exploring their choices with them – not giving them speeches.  Be curious and help them think more deeply and critically than their developing brains can do otherwise.  Children who lie to parents so they can get to a party to get drunk are doing that for a real reason; usually it’s not only about “fun” – as fears of missing out or fears of not being connected to or accepted are powerful, motivating forces – try to get to the root of that.

If the relationship you have with them is profoundly intact because you work on conscious parenting practices daily, you’ll have a better discussion about why the rule is being put in place and how they feel about that.  As importantly, when the time comes that they challenge or break a rule, you’ll also have a better chance of connecting to them from a more calm place to understand what their choice to break the rules was really about.

Lastly, don’t get blindsided.  Know that as your children develop and become more independent, they will need more explanation and understanding from you than you might normally give them at a younger age.  If this isn’t here for you already, it’s coming.  Definitely, absolutely and certainly.  So, begin now to create that more connected relationship and more intimate mutual understanding that is foundational to a strong relationship.

Rules without relationship equals rebellion.

About Michael Vladeck

Michael Vladeck has been a facilitator, educator, mentor, trainer and professional mediator working in the field of personal transformation, relationship dynamics and professional development for the past decade and a half. Currently, he works as coach and counselor, primarily with families with teenagers, helping them create deeper connections and healthier relationships within themselves and with each other. www.michaelvladeck.com

With differences in politics, religion and socioeconomic statuses, America is divided.  To help overcome these differences and to create more collaboration, cooperation and understanding, NPR is collecting stories of citizens who are uniting their communities in a series called Participation Nation.  In one story, Darryl Burnette, a chef, created a community garden in Harlem, NY.  Through this he hopes to teach students about healthy eating habits and urban gardening.  This is a wonderful idea and has the chance to transform our inner city neighborhood, our housing projects and our urban schools.

Other projects include:  providing more holistic care in North Carolina, cleaning up the beaches in Southern California, sheltering homeless pets in Atlanta, and providing playtime for homeless children with responsible, caring adults.

Despite what the project focuses on, they all add to the community and take each person a step closer to unity.  Through creating a stronger sense of togetherness, these initiatives provide a better learning experience because students know that they will have support with their goals and they are asked to creatively imagine solutions to some of our greatest social challenges.  With that support, chance to be creative and contribute, students will perform better in school and connect their learning to what they can actually do in the world outside of school.

Combining student motivation and support, the ultimate goal of the community programs is for students to learn how to be a 21^st century citizen.  The drive to make more of a difference, and the willingness to help others will help students to connect to themselves, their classmates, role models and others who are committed to making a difference.

ACT Inc. just announced they are developing new assessments aimed at students between 3rd and 10th grade to test their college and career readiness skills. Many states are pushing for more students to leave school with the skills they need to succeed in college and career and ACT believes their new series, to be launched in 2014, will be the answer.

The New ACT College and Career Readiness Series 

The new ACT college and career readiness series will largely be available in a digital format to offer students and teachers instant feedback, with the option to take a written test for schools that don’t have access to technology. Tests will include multiple-choice, open-response, and interactive questions that will be analyzed to learn more about students’ strengths and weaknesses.

States are right. Schools need to incorporate college and career readiness curricula in tandem with students’ academics to help them make an early connection between high school and college; an education and a career; and their strengths, interests and goals for the future. LifeBound books like Gifts and Talents, People Smarts, and Making the Most of High School encourage students from middle school to high school to search for their interests and passions so they can become more connected with their peers, their schoolwork, and themselves, as well as develop critical thinking skills and social and emotional intelligence. ACT wants to teach to the “whole” child, however, part of the self-discovery process that prepares students for college and career is in the doing, not the  testing.

Students can take assessments that help them evaluate what they are good at and the professions that align with their strengths. However, learning about a career and being ready for a career path are two different things. Last year, an unprecedented study found 45% of college students didn’t learn critical thinking skills over four years in college. Giving students another test to take, whether or not it’s directed at college and career readiness, will not exercise the critical thinking skills they need to be successful in their college or career years. So, while we applaud the need to have a greater emphasis on career exploration, we encourage the ACT and all who look thoughtfully at this issue to provide a more expansive way to look at self, options, and the people who can help students learn about themselves through the lens of experiences they have had through fields of study and actual workplace contributions.

Experiential learning is key for students to explore college and career interests, develop critical thinking skills to deal with real-world problems, and assess both their strengths and weaknesses. In college, “success” is defined by much more than what students know. Students are graded on what they know how to do. This learning happens by doing their coursework, getting an internship, making valuable connections, and becoming involved with people who can be of help in the discovery process. Professionals are also evaluated on what they know how to do, not just on what they know. This learning happens in the field and out of the classroom. It is where risk meet reward to create opportunity.

College and Career Success Is Not a Formula

Let’s help students early and often to develop critical thinking skills, self-awareness, a knowledge of strengths, weaknesses and interests and a curiosity that can help them to negotiate any unknown in their learning, professional or personal.  Let’s use technology, reading, and advocacy groups which students can form themselves; role models who can guide and inspire; informed and aware teachers and counselors all of which provide the network students need to ignite genuine passion. That motivation can propel students in the most purposeful and effective way no matter what career they may decide to pursue.

Success is not a formula, but an awareness. Let’s promote awareness over yet another quick-fix recipe so that we can broadly, not narrowly, help students to understand themselves, their options, and the paths which make sense for them to pursue their goal. For the informed, self-directed and inspired student who is given the gift of space and time to consider these options, the career paths and opportunities are limitless.

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Sources

“ACT to Roll Out Career and College Readiness Tests for 3rd-10th Grades” by Caralee Adams. 2 July 2012. Education Week. Accessed on 9 July. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2012/07/act_plans_to_roll_out_career_and_college_readiness_tests_for_3rd-10th_grades.html

“Study: Many college students not learning to think critically,” by Sara Rimer. 18 July 2012. The Hechinger Report. Accessed on 9 July 2012. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/18/106949/study-many-college-students-not.html#storylink=cpy