Learning Beyond Grades And Formulas.

I'm pretty sure I had never heard the term "soft skill" in my life until I attended a tech bootcamp last year. In my head, all I came there to do was to learn how to code, develop mobile apps, and start making tech money as soon as possible. So during the onboarding day, I didn't understand why they introduced Mrs. Ivory as our soft skill tutor and why we were supposed to dedicate Mondays to soft skill training and interactive sessions. There were a lot of people who had the same thoughts as me. We'd rather sit in front of the laptop all day running out codes and fixing errors than to sit for what we thought would be a boring soft skill session.

And rightly so, most people who came for the bootcamp didn't attend any soft skill session even once. I didn’t understand the whole concept initially, but the day I attended the first session changed my entire perspective. I could remember hearing the tutor say, "Learning how to code will help you get a job, but learning soft skills will help you keep that job." Every Monday of the week, we'd sit together when it was time for soft skills session and discuss different practical topics: decision making, problem solving, communication, time management, goal setting, values, collaboration, and the list goes on and on.

And no, the sessions weren’t boring at all. For each session, we were always divided into groups and given tasks. Apparently, our motto at the Tech Hub was "learning by doing" so a lot of times, she writes down a problem on a piece of paper and asks us to discuss amongst ourselves how best we’d tackle it in a limited time, to test our problem solving skills and how we’d use a small amount of time to figure out the best approach to solving a problem. In the end, one person from each group comes out and presents what solution the group came up with.

That experience helped me so much in a lot of ways because it taught me how to mingle with people as opposed to my reserved nature. It helped me to be an active team member, sharing my opinions in the group where I belonged. It taught me how to present my ideas in an acceptable way and how to convince people to go with what I'm saying.

It was nothing close to what I did in secondary school. At that time, all you had to do was copy long notes from the board, cram every full stop from the notes, and sit for exams. It was the only way you were sure to pass. It didn’t matter if you liked the subject or understood it, all emphasis was laid on getting good grades and moving on to the next level. I mean, you just had to know the formula suitable for every given equation to get the correct answer and that was it. Nothing was preparing us for life after school. The theories were great, we got some knowledge, but we’ll only be a lost cause when it comes to handling real life problems.

I know a few people who were the smartest in the class, always at the top, but when it comes to regular human dealings, you’ll figure out they really lack common sense, zero emotional intelligence, and they can’t communicate efficiently.

In my opinion, education just has to evolve in some way. Instead of laying too much emphasis on traditional learning and graduating students, let those students get more hands-on experience. Let them work on projects, solve real problems, and collaborate. If I had a chance to redesign what school would be, I’d make sure to incorporate all those. People need to master the art of critical thinking because life doesn’t have a formula.

Since I left school, I haven’t used quadratic equations to solve any of my problems. But I have learnt how to manage my finances, how to be time conscious, how to resolve conflicts, and lots of other practical life problems.

So yeah, the world is fast changing and education needs to change too. Everything is not all about stuffing the brain with finding X. Rather, it should be about preparing students for life ahead so they will not end up being graduates in theory and lost in reality.

Images are mine