Having identified the range of skills and character traits that can be classified as soft skills, and having made sure that the development of these skills in children can be influenced and measured, we offer a brief look at how Russian schools see the teaching of such skills. To begin with, we must say that the Federal State Educational Standards (FSES) actually take soft skills into account. For example, the FSES of basic general education (grades 5–9) states that the following must be provided in the course of education:

• development of personal qualities necessary for solving everyday and unconventional tasks in order to adequately orient oneself in the surrounding world;

• shaping a culture of lifelong learning and self-development;

• personal development of the students, including civic, patriotic, spiritual, moral, aesthetic, physical, labor, environmental education, and recognition of the value of scientific knowledge.

However, education experts agree that both the FSES and schools working under the traditional educational model do not venture beyond simply declaring the importance of teaching the above-mentioned qualities. That is why we invited representatives of alternative schools and experts in alternative education to talk about soft skills.

Yaroslava Kabanova, director of ILI school (St. Petersburg), says the need for soft skills is widely recognized in Russian education today, including in the Ministry of Education; all modern schools are trying to pay attention to these skills. You can hear soft skills being talked about at every education conference: "Everyone talks about it incessantly and implements it as best as they can. Implementation is the biggest issue. Everybody understands how important soft skills are, but few realize how they can be implemented and taught."

Let’s focus now on a few conceptual issues related to the topic of soft skills reported by experts.

Why is there so much talk about soft skills today? Alexey Semyonychev, the administrator of the largest Russian-language Facebook group[2] on alternative education (44,500 members), founder of the Alternative Education in Russia project, and author of books on methods of family education, says soft skills describe "a certain type of thinking that has recently become highly relevant. Why did this happen? Because the world is changing rapidly, it is becoming global, more complex, it is moving from vertical connections to horizontal ones. The Internet is an example of horizontal connections, where you can easily communicate with someone from Nepal, Moscow or Antarctica, without leaving your home in the United States. Language does not matter in this case, the only thing that matters is your desire to communicate. That’s what soft skills are about. They are the skills that enable us to make horizontal and productive connections with each other."

According to Semyonychev, horizontal connections between people represent a new type of relationship, which started developing rapidly in the 21st century. These are pretty well known things. Like, how do we negotiate with one another? How do we communicate non-violently? How do we understand each other’s emotions?

They are the skills that enable us to make horizontal and productive connections with each other.

Why is there no place for soft skills training in traditional schools?

Svetlana Marzeyeva, author of the A’ducation project, head of the Association of Family Schools, board member of the League of Educators, believes that talking about soft skills is "a way to identify educational needs in modern terms and to show the direction in which education needs to change". Svetlana says the school’s greatest problem is that it is "dead as a learning institution; it is only effective as a children’s storage facility. If there is one thing public schools in Russia are good at, that’s 'keeping’ children. Parents need a place to keep their children at, while they are at the office. And while you keep the children in storage, you have to keep them busy. Therefore, each subject is studied to extreme depths, both theory and practical application. Remember Russian classes, where we studied conjunctions vs. syndetic words? Do you still remember the difference? Or in biology, the minutest details of how the body functions, with all the medical names, like three kinds of capillaries, have you ever used that knowledge? The same is true about every subject. Schoolchildren are overloaded with meaningless memorization, with no time left for anything else."

Alexey Semyonychev adds to the discussion from the opposite side. He believes it is impossible to teach soft skills in the modern (traditional) school, because that school is based entirely on vertical connections: "Who needs soft skills when we have vertical connections, like those between the boss and his/her subordinates? The traditional school is a vertical system. Soft skills are out of the question there, because soft skills are based on respect for one another."

According to the expert, the traditional school is a system where everything that can be killed in the soft skills system, gets killed. "What kind of communication can there be when the teacher is sitting up there talking down to you. The ability to choose — what does a student choose in school? He or she doesn’t choose anything. The ability to understand emotions — who’s going to teach them to understand emotions? A teacher who has 30 students in his class?"

The school’s grading system also does not take into account soft skills. Meanwhile, critical thinking is based on the child having to assess critically what is happening around them, that is, have his or her own opinion. "I’m afraid that’s even worse in school. Having your own opinion at school is outright a health hazard," the expert says.

The whole reality around the child in a regular school goes against many of the principles of soft skills. "Before introducing soft skills, we need to change the school first," Alexey Semyonychev sums up. After school, when people are older and no longer pressured by teachers and the school environment, they can finally start developing their soft skills with greater success.

THE HIDDEN CONTENT OF EDUCATION

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