What does it mean to be ready? According to the dictionary readiness means "the state of being fully prepared for something". As we approach each day or stage in our development are we in a state of readiness? Are we or the youth we work with ever "fully prepared" for what is going to happen? OK, maybe not fully prepared but at least prepared to take on the challenges ahead and make the most of the opportunities for learning in front of us. Prepared to try, fail, and try again.
We talk often these days about helping our children be ready for kindergarten or maybe ready for college. The Forum for Youth Investment talks about Ready by 21 - ready for work, college and life. But what does it really mean to be ready? And when we say ready do we mean ready in all the ways that matter - ready cognitively but also socially and emotionally?
In many ways being ready means you are equipped with skills to deal with what lies ahead and to learn from as well as contribute to what is happening. This combination of preparedness and openness to learning is ideal for development. It means you are equipped with key skills you may need not only to survive but also to thrive in the next opportunity for learning.
Far too often we fail to recognize the importance of being ready - being equipped to learn and grow and the very skills that can most equip us for life. We have fallen into a belief that we primarily need to equip our youth with cognitive skills - like reading, writing and arithmetic - and with content knowledge. We are far less focused on how we equip our youth socially and emotionally. Equipping them in these areas is recognized in early childhood but too often forgotten as children enter school and are primarily tested on what they can do on achievement tests.
In 2014 I had the pleasure of chairing a task force for Generation Next, the Strive-like collective impact effort in the Twin Cities focused on closing the achievement gap. The task force will soon be recommending that Generation Next recognize and work toward a new goal in its efforts to assure all children learn. That goal is to ensure "every child is socially and emotionally equipped to learn." Equipped with ways of being that help them build a strong identity, build awareness of their feelings and others, and build the kind of navigational skills they will need to succeed in learning and in life. They need to not only be equipped at these three levels but also equipped in three critical areas - ways of feeling, ways of relating, and ways of doing.
Research is increasingly showing the importance of these social and emotional skills as not only predictors of success but also as critical to a young person's readiness to take on what comes next. When we equip a young person with a positive identity as a learner they approach situations differently. When we equip youth with navigational skills that help them constructively manage their emotions and their relationships with others we are giving them skills that enable learning new things in new ways. We are preparing them for what is next - not just for what is.
In a few months we will also be releasing work from another task force that has been focused on what social and emotional outcomes out of school time youth programs can influence. This task force will encourage programs and the systems that support them to improve their intentionality around social and emotional skills as outcomes -- outcomes they attend to, act strategically to develop, and which they assess appropriately.
As the new year starts are you ready to intentionally improve the ways you help equip your youth with the social and emotional skills they need to learn and contribute when faced with the challenges and opportunities that come their way? What could you do in 2015 to better attend to social and emotional skills? What could you do to take action in designing your program and its activities, to start assessing the social and emotional skills of your young people and the ways your programs impact these skills? And perhaps most importantly, what can we do together to socially and emotionally equip all youth with the skills they need to be ready to learn and succeed in life?
You are welcome to comment on this blog post. We encourage civil discourse, including spirited disagreement. We will delete comments that contain profanity, pornography or hate speech--any remarks that attack or demean people because of their sex, race, ethnic group, etc. -- as well as spam.
We talk often these days about helping our children be ready for kindergarten or maybe ready for college. The Forum for Youth Investment talks about Ready by 21 - ready for work, college and life. But what does it really mean to be ready? And when we say ready do we mean ready in all the ways that matter - ready cognitively but also socially and emotionally?
In many ways being ready means you are equipped with skills to deal with what lies ahead and to learn from as well as contribute to what is happening. This combination of preparedness and openness to learning is ideal for development. It means you are equipped with key skills you may need not only to survive but also to thrive in the next opportunity for learning.
Far too often we fail to recognize the importance of being ready - being equipped to learn and grow and the very skills that can most equip us for life. We have fallen into a belief that we primarily need to equip our youth with cognitive skills - like reading, writing and arithmetic - and with content knowledge. We are far less focused on how we equip our youth socially and emotionally. Equipping them in these areas is recognized in early childhood but too often forgotten as children enter school and are primarily tested on what they can do on achievement tests.
In 2014 I had the pleasure of chairing a task force for Generation Next, the Strive-like collective impact effort in the Twin Cities focused on closing the achievement gap. The task force will soon be recommending that Generation Next recognize and work toward a new goal in its efforts to assure all children learn. That goal is to ensure "every child is socially and emotionally equipped to learn." Equipped with ways of being that help them build a strong identity, build awareness of their feelings and others, and build the kind of navigational skills they will need to succeed in learning and in life. They need to not only be equipped at these three levels but also equipped in three critical areas - ways of feeling, ways of relating, and ways of doing.
Research is increasingly showing the importance of these social and emotional skills as not only predictors of success but also as critical to a young person's readiness to take on what comes next. When we equip a young person with a positive identity as a learner they approach situations differently. When we equip youth with navigational skills that help them constructively manage their emotions and their relationships with others we are giving them skills that enable learning new things in new ways. We are preparing them for what is next - not just for what is.
In a few months we will also be releasing work from another task force that has been focused on what social and emotional outcomes out of school time youth programs can influence. This task force will encourage programs and the systems that support them to improve their intentionality around social and emotional skills as outcomes -- outcomes they attend to, act strategically to develop, and which they assess appropriately.
As the new year starts are you ready to intentionally improve the ways you help equip your youth with the social and emotional skills they need to learn and contribute when faced with the challenges and opportunities that come their way? What could you do in 2015 to better attend to social and emotional skills? What could you do to take action in designing your program and its activities, to start assessing the social and emotional skills of your young people and the ways your programs impact these skills? And perhaps most importantly, what can we do together to socially and emotionally equip all youth with the skills they need to be ready to learn and succeed in life?
-- Dale Blyth, Extension professor, School of Social Work, College of Education and Human Development *
You are welcome to comment on this blog post. We encourage civil discourse, including spirited disagreement. We will delete comments that contain profanity, pornography or hate speech--any remarks that attack or demean people because of their sex, race, ethnic group, etc. -- as well as spam.
thank you for a very insightful column and well as the link to the newest research on social and emotional skill development.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested in receiving the report of the task force on outcomes that OST programs can produce since we work with and on behalf of many such programs here in Indianapolis. In an atmosphere which is hyper-focused on measuring academic achievement and viewing it as THE measure of youth success, helping community leaders and members see the value of OST youth programs in helping youth develop the social and emotional skills is critically important. Thank you again for your insights and thoughtful questions.
John, thanks for your kind words. I will be happy to share the social and emotional outcomes task force report with you when it is complete in March. Please send me your email (I can be reached at blyth004@umn.edu). Happy to connect as we have been facing similar dilemmas but are making progress. If you are not familiar with several recent reports on measures in this area you may want to check out a brief we did called "Resources for Measuring Social and Emotional Learning" that is available at http://www.extension.umn.edu/youth/research/sel/index.html
ReplyDeleteI look forward to connecting.