Skills: The Curriculum Fad-Buster

I know I don’t have to tell teachers how their job is made more difficult by the educational fad-machine which has brought us, over the last twenty years, character education, diversity training, anti-bullying campaigns, SCANS, school to work and 21st Century Skills. The most common foundation for all of these fads is “skills.” This is obvious from the last three mentioned, but it is also true for the first three. Many of the skills in the 10 Skill Sets apply. Wouldn’t students achieve the goals of character education, diversity training and anti-bullying if they were motivated, ethical, effective at one-on-one communication, able to build good relationships, work in teams, lead effectively, detect nonsense, evaluate actions and policies, and problem solve? When one of these fads comes along, you may want to change your rhetoric and use different examples. If you are a skills trainer, however, you won’t have to change what you do in class. You may not even have to attend professional training days on the new fad. Well, at least we could hope!