
Ask almost any employer what they want to see in potential hires and you hear a common answer: soft skills. Hiring managers can teach people to operate a machine or set up a software program. What’s much more challenging is finding workers who can collaborate with their co-workers, persevere in the face of obstacles or simply be responsible enough to show up for work on time.
That’s exactly why Carolina Voyager Charter School is focused not only on teaching academics and technology, but also social and emotional skills that will benefit students well into their adult years.
“We’re focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, but we also realize these social and emotional skills are going to be as important as academic skills in the real world,” says Harry Walker, school leader at Carolina Voyager.
Each month, the school focuses on a core competency, including traits like responsibility, grit, gratitude, integrity, tolerance, relationships, empathy and perseverance. The school guidance counselor teaches kindergarten through fifth grade on the month’s selected competency, but the instruction doesn’t stop there. Teachers are provided a list of activities and suggestions for how they can integrate and reinforce these social and emotional skills into everyday learning.
