Life skills aren’t always something that teachers think about when developing lessons. Most teacher’s spend a majority of their time on learning standards and making sure to teach all the criteria, which of course is very important. However, one thing that I overlook and possibly others overlook, is teaching students life skills.
Communication is a big life skill especially for elementary students. When students don’t get what they want at a young age, they do what they’ve always done which is throw a tantrum. They have to learn that isn’t acceptable behavior anymore. This is where communication comes into play. If you don’t like something, you have to communicate and tell someone. If you don’t like someone calling you names, you communicate to them that you don’t like it. Teachers have to communicate as well with other teachers especially if they are new and need help throughout the year. I want to try to tie in communication activities with stories that align with other curriculum. If a character in a story communicates well, I want to focus some time on talking about that as well.
Resilience is another life skill that i think is important to develop in younger students. Kids should never be afraid of taking on challenges. I think resiliency is tied in with students with growth mindsets. I want to set up a classroom where students aren’t afraid to try new things or answer a question even if they aren’t 100% sure. Taking the easier road isn’t going to get students very far and I think trying to having a growth mindset friendly classroom developed early on in the year can help with teaching students to take on tough challenges.
Goal setting is also an important skill to teach students. Developing where you are at this point of time and where you want to end up can motivate students to work even harder. I think to add this to students in classroom, the teacher has to provide goals for students. Setting up portfolios for students is a great idea even if time consuming. I want to show students where they are right now on a certain subject and where we need to get them by the end of the year. This lets them know that they are improving and can see where they were a couple weeks ago compared to now. Goal setting is something that is going to benefit students through school and into the real world as well.
TravisEDU 