Life Skills is Life Saver
What are Life Skills and why are they so important? I am faced with these questions every day by curious parents.
Let me start here by quoting The British Council's explanation of Life Skills and then we will throw light on its importance in today’s world.
“Life Skills is a term used to described as a set of basic skills acquired through learnings or direct life experiences that enable individuals and groups to effectively handle issues and problems commonly encountered in daily life”
World Health Organization has published a list of Life Skills way back in 1999. This surely means that they have relevance not in our day-to-day life but also in our mental health. According to WHO the critical life skills identified are:
· Decision-making and Problem-solving
· Creative thinking and Critical thinking
· Communication and Interpersonal skills
· Self-awareness and Empathy
· Assertiveness and Equanimity; and
· Resilience and Coping with emotions and stress
Now let us understand the concept in a little deeper and in today’s terms.
We all are aware of all the Industrial Revolutions and their impact on mankind. The Industrial Revolution has always brought about a huge change in our lives. We as a human race have evolved after each one of them.
The 1st Industrial Revolution was in the 1700s where Steam and Wind played a major role. The 2nd one was around 1870- 1914 where Electricity and Combustion engines took over. Then, the 3rd one from 1980-2015 Computers, Internet and Information Technology and Communication ruled.
We are currently amidst the 4th Industrial revolution and this phase is marked by Emerging Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Robots and Google, Alexa, and Siri. This one just like all the previous ones will bring a big change in lifestyle and we as a human race will have to once again evolve.
Everything around us is changing. There were times when you needed hundreds of employees in a Ford Car manufacturing plant and today Tesla cars are manufactured with minimum human intervention. Amazon has changed the way we shop; shopping malls are soon going to be a thing of the past. Google and Amazon have become verbs and not just organizations: People now say I googled the information or I just Amazoned the product. This means these companies are becoming our lifestyle.
According to World Economic Forum almost 65% of jobs that today’s elementary students would be doing, have not even invented. We did not have Air B&B and Uber a decade ago.
Given this scenario, let us look at what is happening in our education system. The US Public school system was designed to produce assembly line workers to meet the ever-increasing demand during the 2nd Industrial Revolution. There has not been a major change since then. It is noticeably clear that we cannot face today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. We need to change the way our kids learn. The world no more needs assembly line workers as those jobs are taken away by robots. We need more leaders, critical thinkers, and people who can ask the right question. Google has all the answers the key is to ask the right question. There is a couple in Bengaluru, India, who has invented a robot that can cook. There is a restaurant which is operated only by robots.
This all indicates that our generation and our future generation are competing not only among each other but also with our own inventions. We need to develop skills to learn, unlearn and relearn at a lightning speed. We might not marry to just one profession. I can an example of myself here, My dad started his career as a lawyer and a Chartered Secretary and retired with the same. I started my career as a Finance MBA, shifted gears to Training, acquired a degree in Corporate Training, and currently a successful Life Skills Coach. Our careers are transient.
We must equip our children to face these fast-changing times. In simple words, they must outsmart Google and Alexa. The only way to do that is by being human, equipping ourselves with life skills which are critical human skills and difficult for a machine to replicate. For example, how many of us feel the need to talk to a live customer service representative and not to a prerecorded IVR or even a Virtual Chat assistant. That is because we need those human elements. And that is where we can outsmart our own invention. We long for those feelings of empathy, compassion, persuasiveness, love, collaboration, and adaptability.
If we were to convert these feelings into abilities, they would be termed as life skills. These are the human attributes that are unique to us. A machine cannot replace it. This is what separated us from an Artificial Intelligence machine. Think about it, we want to call a friend and talk to them about our day, good or bad, and not Alexa or Google. They can solve a critical math question but cannot emphathise a critical life question.
This is the reason, we as parents, need to be even more proactive and ensure that our children are not just educated but skilled as well. We need to be humans again and understand our underlying quality of love, faith, hope, trust, and gratefulness.