Soft skills are increasingly valued in our society for their influence on people’s likelihood of adaptability and success in their personal, professional and social lives. These are skills that are not usually worked on directly in school but transversally and, due to their importance, their development from an early age is increasingly considered necessary.
From we are going to present below the most outstanding aspects about the soft skills: what they are, their importance, what they are and how to develop them.
What are soft skills: definition
The soft skills refer to non-cognitive skills that They allow us knowledge and relationships with others and with ourselvesefficient and creative problem solving, recognizing and managing oneself on an emotional level, setting goals and planning to achieve them, etc.
These are skills that, with respect to cognitive skills that focus on experience and acquisition of content, they are transversalthat is, they occur in all contexts of life and represent, broadly speaking, the way in which people relate to our environment.
In the following article you will find different ones.
The importance of soft skills
Soft skills are extremely important since their benefits go far beyond academic or professional success. People with positively developed soft skills tend to be happier peoplewith pro-social behavior and a very good level of health.
People with high skills can achieve great academic achievements, but if they are not accompanied by good soft skills, they may not occur as expected. On the other hand, people with high transversal skills but without academic studies can reach very good levels in their quality of personal, professional and social life.
The role of soft or transversal skills in learning
Non-cognitive skills can determine much of the learning of content and cognitive skills themselves. There are people who, despite their poor ability in some (or many) of the aspects of transversal skills, achieve high academic achievements. From here on, these types of people may remain there without achieving any goal in their personal life due to lack of soft skills or, there are also cases, they achieve great professional success but are characterized by being not very pro-social people.
On the other hand, it is worth highlighting the so-called “alternative pedagogies” that are emphasizing how education should focus on accompanying and developing soft skills to, from there, develop knowledge and cognitive skills. It is precisely the respectful accompaniment of the different needs of children, according to their evolutionary status, that will allow them to develop favorably on a physical level but also on an emotional and psychological level, giving them sufficient confidence to feel motivated towards learning.
From this approach it is also highlighted how the child’s learning should not be adapted to the academic content and cognitive ability to be developed but rather the other way around. If the content is adapted to the child’s developmental level, including here her personal characteristics, this content will be motivating for him and, therefore, Your learning will be meaningful and will last longer in his personal baggage.
This learning and development of soft skills or, as they have come to call, “21st century skills”are presented as alternative to rote learning of content or the unique development of cognitive skills typical of most of today’s formal education.
List of examples of soft skills
Soft skills, which are currently called the “skills of the 21st century”, since they are the most valued and considered necessary to develop optimally in our current social environment, we can classify them into the following:
- Creativity: fundamental aspect to grow as a person and society, taking into account that life itself is constant movement and fluctuation. Here you can see more information about the .
- Innovation: It means creating things that can be useful for the moment we live in.
- Critical thinking: allows you to reflect on new or already established aspects with the ultimate objective of generating new responses. In the following article we talk in depth about.
- Problem resolution: essential ability to successfully navigate moments of crisis that occur on a daily basis
- Teamwork: a very satisfactory way of working that favors the positive development of human relationships and from which very beneficial results are obtained by uniting the strength of different human potentials.
- Collaboration: This aspect, together with multidisciplinary teamwork, represents a great advance on a human level and in terms of results.
- Effective communication: the ability to transmit the message in a positive, clear and respectful way along with the ability to actively listen and empathize favors personal relationships and, with it, the achievement of projects. Here you will find .
- Capacity of concentration: good ideas and, above all, good developments come from moments of great concentration.
- Organization capacity: essential for the effective development of any project.
- Willpower and effort: It is necessary to continue the action despite the obstacles that arise along the way.
- Flexibility: ability to effectively navigate the changes that occur on a daily basis.
- Adaptability: ability to adjust to changes that require it.
- Initiative: allows us to open new paths in the face of what has already been established.
- Autonomy: possibility of getting things done on your own.
- Sociability: ability to maintain positive social relationships.
- Intercultural competition: with globalization, it is increasingly necessary to be able to move optimally in different cultural environments.
- Productivity: that the final result of the work carried out is a useful product and is carried out efficiently and effectively.
- Leadership: facilitates the organization and development of groups and projects. You can know your level in this capacity with this.
- Responsibility: necessary skill to guarantee seriousness and rigor in our work
- emotional intelligence: ability that allows emotional self-management and with others in a healthy and respectful way, favoring pro-social relationships. Here you will find more information about .
How to develop soft skills
Taking into account the importance of soft skills in life performance, it is very important to develop them from an early age. The methodology used could be the following:
- From the educational institution, they must carry out planning on the execution of the action strategy; evaluate the soft skills to develop; establish the necessary technological policy and carry out the necessary training of the faculty.
- On the other hand, from the pedagogical perspective, learning activities that enhance training in values, commitment to society, collaborative spirit, teamwork, promoting self-esteem, flexibility and adaptability and the use of ICT. All this through the use of games adapted to each educational level, the natural learning process of children.
It is important to keep in mind, throughout the entire process, to respect the rhythms and personal needs of each child so that learning occurs according to the internal motivation of each student. Otherwise, we will fall again into the trap of current teaching, introducing content without the child being prepared to incorporate it. The learning that children do from their own internal needs is integrated in a much deeper, more meaningful and lasting way.
Here you will find how to develop some soft skills, such as: , or .
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- González, A. (2020). Education: 21st century skills. Hop Toys. Solutions for an inclusive society.
- Ortega Goodspeed, T. (2016). Untangling the soft skills conversation. Inter-American Dialogue.
- Ortega Santos, CE, Febles Rodriguez, JP and Estrada Senti, V. (2016). Theoretical-methodological foundation of a strategy to develop soft skills from initial teaching. Scientific journal Ecociencia, Vol.3, Num.3.