Enhancing Soft Skills & Personality in Students

It’s the newest educational buzzword in India. Everyone is speaking out about the crucial relevance of life skills education at the moment, including school and college administrations, principals, instructors, education specialists, parents, students, and even businesses. “Although academic learning is the cornerstone of education, a wonderful school experience extends well beyond merely being knowledgeable about the subject matter. We must provide pupils with more than just a body of information that is reflected on a piece of paper. Giving them the skills they require will enable them to be resourceful in a socially conscious manner, to create with a team of colleagues rather than just by themselves in a lab, and to change course when new demands are made.” says Anoop Singh Bishnoi, Chairman of The Doon School, Dehradun.

Experienced teachers are aware that the highest academic performers aren’t usually the ones who have an uncanny knack for memorizing lengthy passages of Shakespeare, spelling improbable words, or regurgitating historical dates and facts, they aren’t always the ones who can manage a team to complete a task, control their emotions when receiving feedback, or persuading their peers to agree with them – but the latter are the kind of students that the jobs of tomorrow need, and therefore a complete learning experience should balance both academic and life skill teaching. “Success depends on learning new practices or skills. Today’s students must develop a T-shaped profile that demonstrates their expertise in one area and breadth in another. This makes it possible to work with peers from different fields and look at difficult modern problems from several angles,” adds Anoop. Although the old methods of memorization and mental exercises are beneficial in and of themselves, they fall short of adequately preparing our students for the workplace, where the knowledge they had previously retained may now be outdated.

Students are aware of the difficulties in actually finding a job even before they begin their career routes. A student’s capacity to synthesize and communicate their skill sets is crucial since they will eventually need to prove their worth, experience, and skill set. “Whether they are working to solve an old problem or coming up with a fresh explanation for a common occurrence, without knowing ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ to use what they learn in school, our children’s education is vain. Teachers should give students the chance to express themselves freely; they should be encouraged to write in a variety of genres, including paragraphs, summaries, e-mails, and letters. Problem-solving, spoken communication, and peer review should all be promoted. They must be able to lead, recover from setbacks, and be dependable and accountable in situations. The only way our learners will prosper and advance in their careers is with the aid of these time-tested interpersonal and self-management abilities,” says Anoop.

Soft skills can only become better with practice, thus the earlier a child starts learning and refining them, the more they will benefit from them in the long run.