As machines increasingly perform complex tasks once thought to be only capable by humans, this question has become harder to shrug off: what jobs will be left for people by the time that our children are ready to join the workforce?
Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, has warned that there would be mass unemployment because of the rise of the machine. “There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better (than a human). These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.”
Daniel Goleman, a guru on emotional intelligence, states that Emotional Quotient (EQ) has become more important than IQ. The research supports that concept. People with better EQ have better health, pay better attention, work better with their peers, are resilient, and live longer.
Take a look at the top 10 skills necessary for success in 2015 versus 2020.
What are the notable differences between the two?
Tom Hoerr, former head of the New City School, a multiple intelligences school in St. Louis, Missouri, is the author of “The Formative Five: Fostering Grit, Empathy, and other Success Skills Every Student Needs.” He shares – who you are is more important than what you know.
Hoerr relates the success skills to being able to manage yourself and work with others—in other words, to be successful, you need to develop social and character skills.
He defines the success skills as:
The ability to see things from other’s perspectives and to appreciate what they understand and how they feel.
Maintaining focus and choosing wisely
Includes honesty, but is publicly taking a stand and visibly making a commitment to do what is right
Valuing those differences and understand that people work better when a group is composed of a range of backgrounds and beliefs
Persistence with a purpose or focused practice
These skills seem to match well with Goleman’s claim as to how today and in the future, EQ will be more important than IQ. In age-appropriate ways, we teach these social and character skills at Clarion. We educate our students in a “different” way so they will become thinkers, collaborators, communicators, and producers. This will prepare them for any employment that is available when they graduate university and enter the workforce. We consciously teach social and character skills and believe that social interaction deepens their classroom learning. By helping students master social skills, we are creating the vehicle for learning.
Dr. Kandace Williams is the current Superintendent of Clarion School, Dubai. She has a rich tapestry of experience both nationally and internationally with 20 years of school leadership experience. She has earned both a Masters and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership as well as taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at the University of North Carolina, College of Education.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, her middle school won national recognition for academic achievement and social inclusiveness. In Saudi Arabia, she was a Founding Principal at the highly reputed KAUST school which served students from 75 countries. In only the second year of operation, the school was named as an International Baccalaureate World school. She has also served as an Elementary Principal at the prestigious Kennedy School in Berlin, Germany.
Dr. Williams’ most recent assignment was the Chief Instructional Services Officer for the Reading School District in Pennsylvania where she was in charge of supporting the academic programs of 19 schools.
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