The Symptomatic Nature of "Soft Skills"

There is an educational debate raging in our neck of the woods. The debate centers around the best way to assess student learning and the communication that follows.  Anyone following educational trends (yawn) knows our Northwoods school district is representative of a national debate. And like most trends in the nation, this debate presents differently depending on the cultural milieu in which it occurs.

While the debate doesn't exactly arouse strong feelings in lay people, it represents a foundational principle of society important to everyone:  What does it mean to know something? How can I know that you know?

At the risk of getting in over my head, it's safe to say that teachers, learners, philosophers, poets, leaders, and just about everyone has wrestled with this question in some manner or another.  And while I don't pretend to have the complete answer to such an ageless and impossible question, it seems to me that classrooms, as microcosms of society, can provide some insight.

Step back from "knowledge" for a second.

My goal as an educator is to help young people establish intellectual practices that cultivate positive, impactful tendencies in their lives and the lives around them.  So my assessment of this learning is often a person's own sense of empowerment and well-being.  In fact, my assessment is wrapped up in student self-assessment. To practice agency as the primary means of intellectual growth is to embrace freedom, self-awareness, community, failure and growth as natural parts of life.

Some practices I encourage in my classroom develop agency as subtle undercurrents that work magic over time, like the daily practice of reading.  Some are illuminating and obvious, like the practice of organization and punctuality.  These things might include what we in the profession like to refer to as "soft skills" like making eye contact, being prepared, etc. But I see these things not as skills, but as symptoms.

These "soft skills" are symptomatic of an internal orientation of humility and dignity. Humility that one's passing desires are not necessarily more pressing than another's, that one's perspective is not the only, let alone the best. Dignity that affirms one's self and others by showing respect and appreciation for time, attention, work, preparedness: for the moment together.

Sometimes we fake the symptoms until we convince ourself we are "sick." Sometimes the symptoms appear after some hard work inside one's self.  Either way, these symptoms reveal something else happening that is more than the sum of the symptoms.

Learning as practice orients education toward what's important: embracing something bigger than one's self, that's a part of one's self and that one's self is a part of.  Ask any doctor and she'll tell you, the symptoms matter, but what's behind them matters more.