Seven Survival Skills

One of the most important debates of society today is over who has the primary responsibility for teaching marketable job skills: schools or employers.  This is a classic “chicken-or-the-egg” question with no definitive answer.  Employers tend to decry the lack of useful skills of their job applicants, and schools, by and large, have not fully acceded to the idea that they are responsible to teach, first and foremost, critical thinking skills.

One of the key elements of the issue (simplified here) is the argument that the schools should teach students critical thinking skills and the employer is then responsible to teach the critical job skills needed in a specific industry.  Tony Wagner has contributed to the debate with his recent work, “Seven Survival Skills.”

Wagner, who describes his “Skills” as being “defined by business leaders in their own words,” submits these skills as those business leaders should look for in their job applicants:

1.      Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

2.      Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence

3.      Agility and Adaptability

4.      Initiative and Entrepreneurship

5.      Effective Oral and Written Communication

6.      Accessing and Analyzing Information

7.      Curiosity and Imagination

Wagner is the leader of “Innovative Education” in the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University.  Employers interested in this idea might start their online search with Wagner, and continue their education on the subject with CEC Associates’ Fall 2012 New Worker feature article, “Hiring and Maintaining Employees for the Rapidly Changing Workplace.”

From your experience, who do you think is responsible for teaching marketable job skills, such as those outlined by Wagner?  Other than schools or employers, what about a third option for the job: the future employee’s parents?