life skills
6 Reasons You Should Work in America’s Parks and Forests
We both personally benefited from formative experiences working summer jobs on public lands, and invite you to imagine how our society might be improved if every person in America had an opportunity to work and learn in a national park.
Bringing Mindfulness to the K-5 Classroom
By: Lynea Gillen. There is a definite need to teach children at an early age what mindfulness is and how it can give us the tools we need for dealing successfully with all manner of challenges and difficulties.
Flexible from the F to the E: Lessons from AmeriCorps
By: Angela Martano. AmeriCorps alum are entering the workforce with many marketable skills including flexibility learned through their service. Here is one alumna's story.
5 Keys to Successfully Start Your Career
By: Cary J. Green, PhD. You learn in the classroom and through real world experience, but soft skills will increase your effectiveness as you enter the workforce. Here are five valuable soft skills to know to begin a successful career.
Can Grit be Grown?
By: Jonathan E. Martin. Knowing the importance of grit is barely half the battle. What we really need to know is how to grow it in ourselves and others.
Leveraging the Gap Year to Solve the World’s Most Pressing Problems
By: Andrea Wien. Gap year is a proven way to kick start an important and often overlooked type of learning that extends beyond the classroom and out into the world.
8 Ways To Encourage Soft Skills (Core Dispositions) in our Children
Parents and teachers alike agree personal growth and development matters, but these qualities still seem intangible, subjective, and hard to see and measure. The very term ‘soft skills’ sounds pretty fluffy and doesn’t command the sense of importance it deserves. So how might we, as parents, highlight and nurture these core dispositions in our children?
The Hard Road to Soft Skills: Leaving Room for Our Children To Fall
If we believe adversity creates character why can’t we let our kids experience it? We let fear win when we shield our children from challenging experiences.
It’s Time to Trash the Terms “Non-Cogs” and “Soft Skills”
By: Andy Calkins. In this blog Andy suggests a deliberate adoption of language that lives up to the central importance of persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence in students’ genuine readiness for everything they encounter during their PreK-12 experience.
The Power of Parents, Teachers, and Technology in Character Education
How character is acquired, how parents and other adults shape the character of their children, and how school-based, digital learning could advance intentional character growth.