How are Tomorrow's Employees Working on These Skills?

According to an article posted on Yahoo Hotjobs, these six "soft skills" might give someone an edge at landing a good job:

"Today, employers want to see a candidate's ability to show value in the workplace beyond the job description," Stefanie Cross-Wilson, co-president of recruitment and talent management at Hudson, tells Yahoo! HotJobs. "It's the tangible skills or core competencies that get you in the door. It's the soft skills that often get you the job." Any of these six qualities could give you a competitive edge:
Leadership/Team Building. Leadership skills are not only critical for supervisory positions, but also for candidates who may want rise to positions where they'll give directions to others, experts say.
Team Player. Employers like people who play well with others. Even if the job you seek isn't officially part of a team, an employer may want examples of how you collaborated with people who don't report to you.
Goal-Oriented Self-Starter. This doesn't necessarily require motivating others. While employers don't necessarily want loose canons or mavericks, they do appreciate people who don't need to be told what to do and can set their own tasks and follow through.
Excellent Communicator. No matter what the core job duties are, the ability to write a coherent memo or email, give clear verbal instructions, and help meetings run smoothly -- or, at least, not sabotage meetings -- will probably be needed.
Flexibility/Multi-Tasking Ability. Sometimes employers will call this the "ability to wear many hats." Most professionals have multiple job duties even in the best of times. In an environment rife with layoffs, managers are especially comforted knowing a candidate can take on even unanticipated tasks.
Sense of Humor. Unless you're applying to Comedy Central, you don't have to make them double up laughing, according to John McKee, president and founder of BusinessSuccessCoach.net and author of "Career Wisdom." "While I don't hear recruiters asking for candidates who can tell a joke well, I do believe that evidence of light-heartedness and/or the ability to lighten up a tough situation is valued, and self deprecation seems to be well-received," McKee says.
Putting the Skills in Play
Other common soft skills demanded on job listings include "time management" (you can get everything done on time), "strong work ethic" (you're not inclined to take three-hour lunches), and "problem solver." Though you might be able to hint at any of these qualities on your resume, it's really in an interview where you let the skills
shine. "At interview time, most hiring managers are digging deeper into core skills, but also evaluating soft skills, which depend on what is necessary for the position," says Lindsay Olson, partner and recruiter at Paradigm Staffing. You don't have all of these soft skills? Don't worry. Even in today's job market, it's not necessary to be super-human. Cross-Wilson says: "Employers don't expect you to be brilliant at everything. In the interview you can be honest if there is a weakness you have. If you are able to be relaxed and be yourself, they'll see you as authentic." Build Mini-StoriesOlson suggested that job seekers build "mini-stories" around the soft skills they think would be valuable for the job and share them at the interview. "You
should prepare specific examples of how you dealt with a specific task or issue that will help others understand you have skills to solve their problems too." What if you don't think you have the necessary soft skills to land the job? It's not like you can take a class to boost your sense of humor, but you can ask a mentor or a friend for help in improving, for example, your email etiquette. Many soft skills can be built or improved on the job, experts say. Consider volunteering for more responsibility, or jump at the chance to be on a team, so that you'll have anecdotes to tell on your next interview.

Where are tomorrow's workers building and honing these skills today?

State of the Union Quote

"I know that it is easy to lose sight of this truth – to become cynical and doubtful; consumed with the petty and the trivial."--President Barack Obama

All institutions must fight the tendency to become bitter and full of unproductive criticism. Educators must not allow themselves to become consumed by pettiness and backbiting. The stakes are too high for us every day! We have to roll up our sleeves, work hard and keep our efforts trained on what is most important...our students!

Lets Talk About the Third R!

Rigor, Relevance and Relationships......The three R's of a successful high school, or so goes the latest in reform talk about high schools in general. Rigor, being challenging, able to move students beyond what they were capable of when they started. Relevance meaning purposeful. Being able to answer the student's question "why are we doing this today?" with an emphatic reasoning that makes the whole class say to themselves "oh, ok, I get it now!" The final R, relationships, in this instance, speaks to the growth of a bond between learners. I am including the teacher, administrator, and non certified staff with the students in this group. We are all learners and need to insert ourselves into the group in that way. I believe that it is this third R that we often neglect to nurture in our schools. Grade schools create great relations among learners because they attract more parental involvement and the students are grouped into homerooms where they have one teacher for the academic year. Students and teachers have meaningful relationships that go beyond the academic pursuits and involve social ties because of the time spent with one another. Humans are very social animals and seek relationships for their very survival. We depend on each other for survival, camaraderie and entertainment. We all have a need to be a part of a social structure where we are accepted and valued. Most of those needs are met in the family, at least initially. As our students move into the teen years, they become dependent on their peers also, but the family remains very important to meet these needs. So many of our youth do not get their relationship needs met at home or at school, so they turn to their peer group to get their belongingness needs met. How many of our problems, both behavioral and academic stem from the fact that some of our students feel neither connected to the school or valued by the school? The high school structure is not conducive to creating a bonded group that is both social and academic. At PHS, the typical teacher has 150 students they see each day and the focus of their time with students is academic in nature. The student's need to be accepted and valued by a significant adult influence is not met easily in the high school environment. With the teacher playing the role of the expert and the knowledge giver, he or she very rarely gets to interact on a personal level with groups of students in ways that are both and academic and social in nature. We need to seek a learning partnership with students where all are seen as learners and learning is a task that only happens when all are partnered to meet a common goal. If students view themselves as part of a group with a common goal, and feel like a valued participant, learning tasks and projects will become more meaningful for them. Search your memory banks for the most memorable and meaningful parts of your own education. I'll bet you remember being part of a special group, a teacher that took the time to know you, or somebody who valued you and made you and what you did seem special. How can we better create meaningful academic relationships at PHS. We need your input!

A Stimulating Idea........

With the stroke of the pen of our president, the U.S. Government set into motion the machinations that will spend nearly $800 billion of our tax dollars. We are in an economic crisis and no measure is too drastic to stop the spiraling economic contraction, to stem gushing flow of consumer confidence down the drain. We have been able to identify a problem, a massive recession, speculate about its causes, and come up with plan to address the problem. The jury is out about how much impact the new law will have if any. Did we not see this coming? A housing market out of control. Massive government spending with little to no return (foreign wars) coupled with tax breaks that made government borrowing inevitable. The American lifestyle had become one of instant gratification. Buy now, pay later, easy credit and booming sales margins.......all based on wealth that did not exist. A contraction was inevitable! There were many signs that the bust was coming, yet it was easy for us to sit and watch the train wreck coming as opposed to enact some painful measures (that pale in comparison to the pain we are enduring now) that could have curtailed the now mushrooming economic catastrophe. We need to do a better job of recognizing that we need to make changes to avoid very painful consequences in the future. I believe we are at the same crossroads in American public education. We are at a point where if we do nothing, our public education system will simply become irrelevant and become extinct. We need to recognize that what we have taught and how we have taught during the industrial and information ages has become obsolete. The students we have today have access to tools that allow them to do work that was done by specialists only ten years ago. Any job that can be done by a computer or outsourced to a foreign country to be done by workers who will do it on the cheap is no longer a viable career choice for one who want to own a home and raise a family. I am afraid that our schools are simply preparing our next generation for jobs whose time has past. We must reform our schools to focus on creativity and design, to foster critical thinking and problem solving. Today's student must communicate, persuade, and have empathy in order to compete in the future economy. We cannot wait. Just as with the current economic crises, the signs are all there. The evidence says we must change before it is too late and we face an educational crisis of a magnitude that we lose several generations while we try to find the way to fix it!

A school with no grade levels.......

Interesting concept being tried in a very large district in Colorado. (read about it here) It is not new and it is not all that novel, but it is a big change for a large district that bears watching! What are your thoughts?

What does this mean to you?

Shaping America's Future: Recommendations from the Hope Foundation

This past week the Hope Foundation gathered fourteen education policy experts to draft recommendations to the Obama Administration concerning the future direction of American school. You can read the entire fine report here. While there is nothing new about the agenda advanced here, I do believe that we are at a very important crossroads in our history as a nation. We must make major changes in our educational system now! We cannot continue waste time because our only future is our children. NCLB has caused us to focus so narrowly on performance on achievement tests that we have failed to emphasize the most important parts of what education does for this nation. It should foster creativity, critical thinking, communication, networking, and use of 21st Century technological skills. So much of what makes America a leader in the world is that we have always led in creating citizens that could do the above mentioned things. We have no time to spare! We have to prepare our future now! Tune in for further thoughts on the recommendations from the Courageous Leadership for Shaping America's Future IV Forum.

The following is a synopsis of the recommendations made by Courageous Leadership for Shaping America's Future IV Forum:
1. Assure Readiness: Success in the classroom requires that children arrive ready to learn – cognitively, physically and psychologically.

2. Provide Rich Learning Environments for All Students: All young people in America deserve rich learning environments that challenges their thinking, promotes learning by doing and focuses on higher-order thinking skills that encourage life-long learning and prepare young people to be engaged, collaborative citizens.

3. Improve Overall Standards, Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment: Policies and systems must be in place to promote best practices in teaching, reward high performers, and provide opportunities for feedback and development for those in need of improvement.

4. Improve Overall Teacher Quality: Policies and systems must be in place to promote best practices in teaching, reward high performers, and provide opportunities for feedback and development for those in need of improvement.

5. Ensure the Development of 21 st Century School Leaders: School leadership should be focused on a combination of student learning, progress, and culture building, while enhancing the quality of teaching.

6.Generate and Use Research Effectively: Ensure the use of existing research and advance new research topics that address issues specific to 21 st Century challenges.

Ownership

“The ownership of the team lies with the players, not the coaches. We talked
about that at the half and before the game,” Elston added. “They stepped up and
took ownership in that second half, and that’s what we need them to continue to
do.”--Paris High School Basketball Coach Terry Elston.

Ownership in this context is taking responsibility. Responsibility to care. To nurture. To get what needs to be done finished. In education we have put a lot of emphasis on what the school needs to do. What the teachers need to do. There also needs to be emphasis put on the students taking ownership. After all, who benefits from the efforts made in education? Sure, people make a living providing it, but ultimately it is the student that should benefit. Who are students hurting when they do not care? Who are they hurting when they do not finish assignments or prepare for projects and assessments? The adults (meaning educators and parents) need to allow students to take that responsibility by providing opportunities at all ages for the student to be responsible and to experience consequences when responsibilities are not met. As an aside, student ownership in education would be a much easier sell if students were more actively engaged in their education!