Highlighting the importance of soft skills for high school students
Prioritizing student well-being includes setting students up for future success by equipping them with the soft skills needed to navigate a complicated world. Developing and enhancing soft skills remains an essential component of student learning.
Soft skills in demand by employers
After a deep dive into the hiring trends of the last year, LinkedIn identified the five most in-demand soft skills:
- Creativity
- Persuasion
- Collaboration
- Adaptability
- Emotional intelligence
All of them focus on looking after well-being and learning how to interact and empathize with others.
Soft skills, or interpersonal and communication skills, are not so ‘soft,’ particularly when they are in high demand in today’s workplace– with a short supply. Dartmouth University President even calls them “power skills,” an emphasis on their high value. A study from Harvard University found that a whopping 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills. Refining soft skills is essential to effective leadership and success in any position. But how can students, particularly high school students, develop them?
Developing soft skills in high school
To successfully transition from high school to college and/or the workplace, high school students need to learn how to manage their time, hit deadlines, deal with setbacks, and collaborate with classmates. It all starts with equipping students with modern life skills in adolescence. A study by Duke University found that not only do soft skills learned in childhood and teenage years increase a young adult’s performance in school, life, and career, but that it is also crucial to consistently incorporate those skills throughout their education. By integrating these elements into classrooms, teachers and staff can help prepare students for life after graduation.
About The Social Institute
The Social Institute (TSI) is the leader in equipping students, families, and educators with modern life skills to impact learning, well-being, and students’ futures. Through #WinAtSocial, our interactive, peer-to-peer learning platform, we integrate teacher PD, family resources, student voice insights, and more to empower entire school communities to make positive choices online and offline. #WinAtSocial Lessons teach essential skills while capturing student voice and actionable insights for educators. These insights help educators maintain a healthy school culture, foster high-impact teaching, and build meaningful relationships with families. Our unique, student-respected approach empowers and equips students authentically, enabling our solution to increase classroom participation and improve student-teacher relationships. Through our one-of-a-kind lesson development process, we create lessons for a variety of core and elective classes, incorporating timely topics such as social media, A.I., screen time, misinformation, and current events to help schools stay proactive in supporting student health, happiness, and academic success.