In my search for interesting articles to use for my letter to the editor assignment this semester, I came across an article titled “Study finds social-skills teaching boosts academics” on the Education Week website. This article is really interesting and in my opinion shows the importance of focusing not only on academics, but on these social and emotional skills as well. The children are not only benefiting by learning to cooperate more with their peers and are able to handle stress better (which prepares them just as much for real-life and the workforce as academics, in my humble opinion), but also improve their grades and standardized-test scores. I hope that this study will reach the school administrators and political figures out there who are trying to decrease or phase out the amount of time that is spent teaching children these skills. Focusing on math and science is not the only way of guiding our children to be contenders in the global job market and to help our nation continue to be front-runners in the global economy. We want our children to be well-rounded individuals, allowed to pursue their interests, not just those interests that administrators feel they should pursue. As one of my classmates said in a class last night, not all students are meant to be academic, or want to pursue careers as engineers or scientists. We should give them options in their learning and not make those decisions for them.
I agree with your comments. I think that children still need to be children. They need to learn to coexist with others so that when they are adults they can enter the work place and work as a team. They will need the social skills that they learn in children. That is why I think the idea of getting rid of recess is a really bad idea. This is where many social characteristics develop. We also need to keep in mind that above all else they are still children and need to be able to act like children.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, children should be well-rounded individuals, allowed to pursue their interests, not just the interests that administrators feel they should pursue. I believe that children not only need to develop social skills so that they are prepared to be independent but I believe that by teaching students social skills, children will become more confident in themselves. When children are confident in themselves, then they will be more willing and motivated to participate in learning activities. If administrators decided that teachers should stop teaching social skills in exchange for more core area instructional time, I don't believe students will know how to properly interact with their peers or adults. In a country that is trying to educate students to be competitive in the global market, I feel that administrators should focus on educating a well round student instead of just a book smart student.
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