Content vs Skills (ATLs)
A short but profound thought provoking quote.
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/15/09/payoff-people-skills
Reading a Harvard Graduate School of Education paper l came across this quote from David Deming, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, having given two short in school sessions about the IB ATLs it resonated deeply.
By teaching with a focus on content the original purpose of school as Cubberley (1916), a prominent figure in school administration, directly described schools as factories. You are taught specific content to complete a specific task.
Historians and sociologists (Bowles & Gintis, Thompson, Foucault) show schooling mirrored the control mechanisms of factories.
This reminded me of a book l read at university called ‘Democracy and Education’ (1916) by J. Dewey which contains a quote that sticks with me until this very day:
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
Chronologically the change from content based education where students were ‘trained’ and constrained, conditioned (cell and bell architecture of school buildings) and only taught specific content to fulfill an industry requirement to an education focused on the student as a person, then moved from Dewey to María Montessori who focused on practice life skills and social responsibility.
Next came Jean Piaget & Lev Vygotsky. Piaget with his focus on cognitive development and problem solving skills through active learning and Vygotsky with his social interaction soft skills and the Zone of Proximal Development.
In more recent times this has led to Howard Gardner and his multiple intelligences theory which moves far beyond pure academics.
This has led to many renowned education systems placing more emphasis on soft skills over pure content. Institutions and organizations such as:
- the OECD with their ‘21st century Skills Movement’.
- UNESCO – Four Pilars of Education ‘Learning the treasure within’.
- United Kingdom 2007 Secondary National Curriculum reform which added Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS).
- The Spanish LOMLOE educational reform which incorporated in the R.D 217/2022 articles 2 and 11 the ‘Competencias Claves’.
All of this may sound similar for an IB teacher, since the 1960s the International Baccalaureate has been promoting this through the Approaches to Learning (ATLs).
This shift from content based education to soft skills (ATLs) is not only a theory created by pedagogical organizations, studies by the the World Economic Forum and leading businesses uphold this change.
It is interesting to see that studies from Harvard, Stanford and the Carnegie Foundation have found that 85% of career success comes from soft skills and only 15% from technical knowledge.
From 1918 to the present day, there are many studies, organizations and institutions which validate that the focus on content only in education is not the appropriate path and does an injustice to our students.
1918 – Mann (Carnegie Foundation) Found that ~85% of success in engineering is due to soft skills (personality and people skills), only ~15% to technical knowledge.
2011 – CASEL Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Meta-Analysis (Durlak et al.) Analyzed 213 studies; SEL programs improve social skills and academic performance by 11 percentile points on average.
2018 – Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 90% of executives rate soft skills as “very important” or “important” for business success.
2019 – National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Job Outlook Survey Employers rank communication, teamwork, and problem-solving as the top three hiring skills, ahead of technical skills.
2019 – LinkedIn Learning Report 92% of talent professionals say soft skills matter as much or more than hard skills; creativity, persuasion, collaboration, and adaptability top the list. LinkedIn Learning 2019 Workplace Learning Report
2019 – Harvard Business Review Employees with strong soft skills are more likely to be promoted and perform better in leadership roles.
2020 – World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report By 2025, complex problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and creativity will be more important than technical skills. WEF Future of Jobs Report 2020