What are life skills?

Life skills equip students to thrive in the classroom and in the world beyond. The 21st century life skills flexibility, social skills, and leadership.

Flexibility

Given the rapid rate of change in our world, the ability to adjust and adapt is critical to success. Students needs to learn to quickly analyze what is going on around them and make adjustments on the fly—all the while keeping their goals at the forefront of their minds. Flexibility is not spinelessness. In fact, a spine needs to be flexible to allow the person to move while remaining upright with eyes on the prize.

The inquiry process requires and rewards flexibility. Instead of following a set course or a rigid set of instructions, students must make constant course corrections as they do the following:

set goals
seek answers
navigate information
collaborate with others
create something
evaluate their work
improve it
share it with the world

Social Skills

Human being have always been social creatures, connecting to and depending on a tribe of some hundred others. Technology now allows people to belong to multiple tribes—students at the same school, friends on Facebook, colleagues on LinkedIn, fans on fan sites, gamers on massively multiplayer online games. In all of these environments, social skills are critical. Whether students are having a face-to-face meeting or are tweeting with hundreds of strangers, there are real human beings with real thoughts, feelings, and needs on the other end. And, as work environments become more collaborative, social skills are a key to success.

The best way for students to develop social skills is to collaborate with others. When students work together on a project, they have common goals and interests, they are required to develop social skills such as these:

cooperation
compromise
decision making
communicating
using emotional intelligence
using constructive criticism
trusting others
delivering on promises
coordinating work

Leadership

Leadership is a suite of related skills that combines the other life skills. Good leaders take initiative, have strong social skills, are flexible, and are productive. They also do the following:

Identify goals
Inspire others to share those goals
Organize a group so that all members can contribute according to their abilities
Resolve conflicts among members
Encourage the group to reach their goals
Help group members solve problems and improve performance
Give credit where it is due

That list pretty well describes what you do daily as a teacher—because you are the leader of your class. However, if students are perpetually in the role of followers, they never have to learn these skills. They need to occasionally become the teacher, and inquiry allows them to do so. Group projects also require students to take on leadership responsibilities. Inquire provides many projects that can be done in groups.