The School of the Future. Does it Have the Room for Soft Skills Development?

The so-called soft skills — a set of personal and social skills and qualities — are increasingly becoming the subject of studies and public discourse lately. However, school and University education still remains focused on knowledge. Will the School of the Future place as much emphasis to the development of soft skills as to substantive learning? We are starting a series of publications dedicated to the models of the School of the Future. Our first conversation is about what role the school plays in developing soft skills in children.


FROM RESEARCH AMONG ENGINEERS TO GOOGLE EMPLOYEES
Scientists discovered long ago that in-depth knowledge and even good grades at school and the University do not necessarily translate into success in life and career. For example, the National Soft Skills Association of America describes the findings of a study covering several thousand American engineers, conducted more than a hundred years ago, in 1918. Even then, about 85% of engineers cited personal qualities as the most important factor influencing success in an engineering career -compared to 15% citing technical knowledge and skills .
Among the much more recent findings is information from Google, which analyzed data on the hiring, career development and dismissal of its employees between 1998 and 2013. The study showed that technical knowledge and skills in the respective field ranked last among the eight most important qualities of the best Google employees. All the seven more important success factors were represented by social skills: being a good mentor; good communication and listening skills; ability to understand others (including recognition of others' values and perspectives); empathy and support for one's peers; ability to think critically and solve problems; and ability to establish linkages between complex ideas .

WHAT ARE SOFT SKILLS?
The term "soft skills" lacks a clear definition in Russian or in English language. In fact, even though the term "soft skills" prevails, the concept can be described using different names, such as common skills or core skills. This includes skills, abilities, and personality traits that are important and needed in any profession, as well as generally in every person's life. Typically, soft skills include critical thinking, problem-solving ability, ability to speak in public, work in a team, be a leader, creative thinking ability, and so on. Soft skills are hard to measure, unlike hard skills, that is, knowledge and skills in specific areas and professions. James Heckman, Nobel Prize winner in economics, dedicated a lot of time to education research, including that in vocational training. He showed that high IQ level only increases a person's chances of financial success by 1-2%. Instead, soft skills like conscientiousness and diligence, perseverance, and self-discipline are more likely to lead to financial success .
In his works on soft skills, Heckman suggests relying on the taxonomy of personal qualities (character traits) used by psychologists dealing with personality development (Heckman,
If the "Big Five" personality traits seem too hard to put into operational context, politicians come to the rescue. In 2016, for example, the World Economic Forum in Davos presented ten flexible skills of the future that professionals in every profession will need by 2020 ): 1. Ability to solve complex (multi-faceted) problems. 2. Critical thinking. 3. Creativity. 4. Ability to manage people. 5. Ability to coordinate one's action with other people. 6. Emotional intelligence. 7. Ability to form judgments and make decisions. 8. Service orientation. 9. Negotiating. 10. Cognitive flexibility.
In Russia, an even simpler model called 4C is used. The idea is there are four key competencies starting with "C" that every high school student needs to develop in order to meet the demands of the labor market in the future (Foxford.Media, 2019): 1. Critical Thinking -the ability to critically evaluate information coming from the outside, to analyze it and to check its validity, to see causal relationships, to discard the unnecessary and highlight the important, to draw conclusions; 2. Creativity -the ability to think outside the box, to find spur-of-the-moment solutions to problems, to react flexibly to changes; 3. Communication Skills -the ability to communicate, convey one's message, hear the others, negotiate; 4. Coordination -the ability to work in a team, to take on both leadership and rank-and-file functions, to delegate tasks and monitor performance.

CAN THESE SKILLS BE TAUGHT AND EVALUATED?
Since soft skills are not purely skills, but also character traits, there is much debate in science and education about the extent to which character traits can be influenced or shaped, and how changes in these skills and personality traits can be measured.
Here we can rely on a specialized analytical report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . The report focuses on the role of social and emotional skills and presents the results of large-scale longitudinal studies spanning nine countries.
Here are some key findings of the study: Children need a balanced set of cognitive, social, and emotional skills to achieve positive outcomes in life. Cognitive, social and emotional skills all play an important role in improving economic and social outcomes in people's lives. At the same time, social and emotional skills interact with cognitive skills, mutually enriching each other and thus further increasing the likelihood of the children achieving positive outcomes as adults.
Teachers and parents can help improve children's social and emotional skills by building their relationships with children and using hands-on learning techniques. Contrary to popular misconception, children are not born with a fixed set of abilities. Teachers and parents can play a role in children's development. Strong parent-teacher-child relationships and the use of real-life examples and hands-on experiences while learning are some of the most efficient approaches to building the sense of independence, responsibility, teamwork skills, and self-confidence in children.
Since "skills breed skills", early exposure to social and emotional skills may have a greater effect. Social and emotional skills are more flexible between early childhood and adolescence. Early "investment" in the development of the child's social and emotional skills is especially important because these skills develop gradually based on past "investments" in them. In addition, people with higher levels of social and emotional skills (e.g., self-confidence and perseverance) are likely to benefit more from further investment in cognitive skills (e.g., math and science lessons).
Social and emotional skills can be reliably measured across cultural or linguistic boundaries. Social and emotional skills can be reliably measured for different age groups within cultural and linguistic boundaries. This includes personality self-assessment, behavioral qualities and objective psychological tests. Some of these indicators predict a variety of success factors in education, the labor market, and society as a whole.

SOFT SKILLS IN RUSSIAN EDUCATION: THE BEGINNING OF THE CONVERSATION
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 (FGOS) actually take soft skills into account. For example, the FGOS 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 FGOS 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 1 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 больше пользы от дальнейших вложений в когнитивные навыки (например, уроков математики и естественных наук).
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?
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 Остановимся сейчас на нескольких концептуальных вопросах в теме soft skills, о которых рассказали эксперты.
Soft skills are the skills that enable us to make horizontal and productive connections with each other.
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
Speaking of teaching soft skills in schools, experts touch upon the connection between education and upbringing. Yaroslava Kabanova points out that we often forget that a child spends a great amount of time at school, where he or she develops as a person. Education is about teaching as much as about upbringing. If we leave upbringing out of the curriculum, the child still receives it from the adults around him: teachers, tutors, everyone else at school.
"It is very important to have the right kind of people around the child. The school's job is to develop the child's circle of communication, to lay down the basic values, concepts, principles, to build up the child's personality, to help him find his way, to help him in his development, in communication. Because that's the society we are going to have in five years; that's the environment we are all going to live in. That's the future we are shaping," Yaroslava Kabanova says.
The essence of this phenomenon is revealed by the term "hidden curriculum," used by many Western researchers. To me personally, the term "hidden content of education" seems quite acceptable. Alexey Semyonychev commented on the connection between the hidden content of education and soft skills development as follows: "Without even noticing, a child is taught other skills besides knowledge. When the teacher enters the classroom, everyone must stand up. Students talk to their teachers exclusively on formal terms and by their full names, while teachers talk to the kids informally, addressing them by first name only. Students must obey the teacher, no matter what he or she says. Students in class have no right to express their opinions. This results in a child raised into obedience, into "my opinion can wait" attitude. There is no need to learn to negotiate, because the teacher has the last word; you are not allowed to get creative during the class as you may get an "F" for that. Do the tests, nothing else, creativity is not required." общество, которое будет через пять лет; это будет то окружение, в котором мы все будем жить. Мы это будущее и формируем»,говорит Ярослава Кабанова.

WILL SOFT SKILLS TRAINING BE UNNECESSARY AT THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE?
We can say that experts agree that if the school is properly configured with "hidden educational content", then children will acquire soft skills naturally, as part of school life.
Svetlana Marzeyeva believes that it is not necessary to impose either "hard" or "soft" skills on children: "Any school that wants to meet the current trends must put aside control and evaluation and focus instead on helping students develop and master their personal educational goals; that is, children in today's school must cease to be objects of educational activity. As soon they become subjects, the question of "hard" and "soft" skills will fade away by itself. It doesn't matter what to teach, it matters who to teach. And that determines how they will be taught." Alexey Semyonychev explains that if the principles developed in alternative education are implemented in practice, this will effectively mean that separate, special training in school for flexible skills will no longer be necessary. "Soft skills, democratic education, free education are parts of a common democratic concept. If the schools change towards alternative, informal education, as we are planning it, "soft skills" training will no longer be necessary. The school system itself, each teacher's mode of instruction, the system of school organization -all this will work to ensure that the child grows up as a free and independent person, right from the start. In turn, freedom and independence themselves will give birth to all the 'soft skills' you can think of," the expert says.
What can change and improve a school? The three slogans of the French Revolutionliberty, equality, fraternityare as relevant here as never before.
Introducing twelve Russian schools that have integrated soft skills training into their curricula.

ABOUT THE SELECTION OF SCHOOLS AND PRESENTATION FORMAT
The types of schools selected for this review are based on the results of the School of the Future study conducted by the analytical department of the Positive Changes Factory in the first half of 2022. The study identified key models of school education in Russia and proposed criteria for their classification and evaluation. One of the criteria is "soft skills orientation." When selecting specific cases for this review, we were guided by the recommendations of the experts interviewed in the School of the Future study.
The resulting sampling of schools is not intended to be representative but rather will serve as an illustration of the variety of approaches Russian schools take to soft skills instruction.

STUDY PROGRAM
General secondary education school. It strives to guarantee both achieving certain academic results (for example, successful examinations) and maintaining a humanistic vector of self-determination, personal development, attention to each child, his or her personal movement.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
The school's mission is to give children from different social backgrounds an opportunity to develop and demonstrate their cognitive, creative and personal abilities through continuous growth, education and upbringing, and eventually find the best ways to achieving happiness and complete self-fulfillment in the modern society, thus contributing to its development. Our goal is to teach children to live independently, based on their authentic positions, to make informed decisions and independent choices.
School values are curiosity and development; openness and self-determination; responsibility and choice; non nobis solum ("not just for yourself"); comradeship.

STUDY PROGRAM
The instruction includes both standard academic disciplines (FGOS NOO) and activities aimed at developing creative thinking, emotional intelligence, communicative competence, cooperation and teamwork, systemic thinking, and information literacy. The curriculum is focused not only on subject literacy, but also building soft skills. There is an option to study under the International Baccalaureate program.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
The values of Khoroshkola are reflected in the portrait of its student. It is based on four basic values: awareness, respect, responsibility, and caring.
It is the school of the 21st century competencies. "Learning to learn" throughout life is the key competency being developed at Khoroshkola. By developing critical and systemic thinking, emotional intelligence, information literacy and design thinking, communication and cooperation, we enable our students to adapt quickly in a rapidly changing world.

THE SMART SCHOOL. A CHAIN OF SCHOOLS AND FRANCHISES
OPENING YEAR 2016.

INSTRUCTION
Kindergarten, elementary school, high school. 20 branches

STUDY PROGRAM
Education according to FGOS standards, supplemented by a variety of extracurricular activities. Children receive knowledge aimed at the development of hard and soft skills and personality traits. In our work we are guided by the Finnish educational model.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
Our schools use the original SMART methodology: We strive to teach children to understand themselves, to interact with the others, to show a flexible response to a rapidly changing world, and to never retreat in the face of difficulties.

THE WAY OF THE GRAIN WALDORF SCHOOL
OPENING YEAR 1998.

STUDY PROGRAM
The school uses the Waldorf pedagogy adapted to Russian educational standards, which implies: • personalization and differentiation of learning; • the one-classroom-teacher principle; • active engagement of the parents; • the main-lesson principle, teaching by "epochs"; • an imaginative and artistic approach to teaching; • the versatility of education; • developing a strong-willed culture through a variety of practical activities; • the study of music, painting, eurythmy, introduction to musical instruments, handicrafts; • no grade point system.
The curriculum differs significantly from the usual educational curriculum, but it is approved by the Department of Education. In high school, students prepare for the USE and pass it safely.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
A freely self-determined, creative person with the health, abilities and strength for conscious choice and self-actualization, who perceives the world holistically and imaginatively -this is the goal of the Waldorf school in working with each child.
Why Waldorf? The Waldorf School is of interest to those parents who want holistic development for their child. During the school years it is important for a person to develop not only thinking, but also feeling and free will. All standard subjects are present in the Waldorf School curriculum: mathematics, native language, literature, history, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, foreign lan guages, and computer science. However, some of the subjects are aimed at developing the senses and the will.
The main thing is to make sure that a person, after growing up, bravely takes on everything new, feels interest and ability to solve problems in life. One important quality of Waldorf students identified in studies of learning abilities is creativity, non-standard thinking; in studies of social interactions -tolerance, openness. Программа обучения существенно отличается от обычной образовательной, однако она утверждена Департаментом образования. В старших классах ученики готовятся к ЕГЭ и благополучно сдают их.

THE MIKHAILOVA MONTESSORI SCHOOL
OPENING YEAR 1997.

STUDY PROGRAM
Development Center -Kindergarten -School.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
The School's MISSION. With love and joy, in cooperation with the parents, we help the children in their self-development and education, thus contributing to the creation of a society of independent and responsible people.
The MMS is a place where children gain independence and autonomy, parents gain a community of similarly conscious parents, peace and confidence in their children's future, and teachers, treating each child with respect and love, become guides for children into a world of happy adults.
Our Values: • The special roles of the teacher and the student. Children and adults work together in an atmosphere of mutual assistance and respect for each other. • Continuous self-education and independence.
Nurturing responsibility and independence as the key to life. • Caring for the world we live in and leave behind.
The instruction takes into account the two poles of a child's development: gaining independence and becoming a part of the collective. Children learn to make choices and negotiate with others.

INSTRUCTION
From age 4 to 11th grade.

STUDY PROGRAM
The school's program takes into account the state standards and gives students an opportunity to take all required exams. The Orange is a school of informal education, where children decide everything. The school is governed by the children's parliament, which has absolute power. No decision by an adult (the principal and teachers are no exception) is valid unless it has been accepted and approved by the students. Among other things, the students can ask to add a new subject to the schedule 1 .

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
The desire for new things, curiosity, creativity, ingenuity, the ability to create are the traits inherent in everyone, regardless of the age. Our task is to create the conditions in which these qualities can manifest themselves and develop. One of the main skills a person has is the ability to interact with other people, with the world, with knowledge, with himself. We all learn this together at the Orange, too.
We strive to make people feel free, to develop in many ways, to learn to choose -in both content and form. That's why there are so many different subjects at The Orange. Most of the classes are chosen by the students themselves.
We recognize the uniqueness of each individual, we understand that the best and main driver of the educational process is personal interest, we believe that one of the main skills today is the ability to choose and the ability to interact -with the world around us, with ourselves, with knowledge, with other people and so on. Finally, we believe that a modern lesson should include all of the above.

THINKING
It is not just "the aggregate knowledge", collected "just in case", but questions of worldview significance for children and adolescents -that's the program of our school. We teach you to think, not to repeat someone else's thoughts, and every lesson we have is a small discovery.

COOPERATION
We don't just "sit and listen" in class -we work individually and in teams. We don't watch -we do it ourselves! FREEDOM How do we understand this word? It is about being able to think for yourself and do what you thought. We don't demand blind obedience -we discuss all the rules together and give you the opportunity to choose. We don't march in formation -we teach freedom and independence. ЛИЦЕЙ «КОВЧЕГ XXI ВЕК» ГОД ОТКРЫТИЯ 1992.

STUDY PROGRAM
The school has no "subject specialization." We strive to give students an opportunity to build their own educational routes and master the subjects that interest them most. Upon graduation, most of the children enter the leading universities of St. Petersburg and Moscow.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
We work a lot on self-determination, self-understanding, and building each child's social skills.
We build our curriculum around four main areas: we teach how to learn, we teach how to do, we teach how to interact, and we teach how to live: • Developing critical thinking • Teaching how to learn and make informed choices • Developing responsibility for your performance • Practicing teamwork and negotiation skills In elementary school we preserve the child's natural curiosity and interest, open up the world of knowledge, and instill a taste for independence.
In middle school, we create a space for trials, project activities, and living different experiences. We teach out-of-the-box thinking and creative problem solving.
In high school, we open up opportunities for the child to delve deeper into a subject of interest, to gain real-world experience with professionals from various fields, and prepare for final exams.

INSTRUCTION
The school website offers no information about grades/age of students, but it says that one can graduate as an extern at the age of 14-16.

STUDY PROGRAM
Combination of classical general education subjects with classes to develop superpowers (development of intuition, photographic memory, speed reading).

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
The main tasks and priorities of the school: THE SUCCESS AND HEALTH OF EACH STUDENT To form in each child the qualities of a successful, morally and physically healthy personality, capable of successful socialization and adaptation to the labor market.
DEVELOPMENT OF CREATIVE ABILITIES, ACTING AND PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS Development of creative abilities and emotional intelligence in the visual arts, acting and public speaking, music, developing authentic products; moral development and etiquette classes.

THE ORION FAMILY SCHOOL
OPENING YEAR 2007 (?).

STUDY PROGRAM
Orion Family School is a school within the family community, one that is harmoniously integrated into its life. Our children successfully pass interim and final state certification.

ABOUT SOFT SKILLS
We teach with the support of joint activities of children and adults, sharing events, values, and caring interpersonal relationships.
We guarantee a friendly social environment. The child stops being afraid of communication. He or she learns communication by solving developmental problems.
We teach through play, project activities, and use elements of research work. Approaches vary depending on the child's individual developmental goals.
Upbringing and value-based development. We not only teach but also develop the children through informal events. Children choose what events to participate in or organize them with the help of adults.
A wide range of additional education and career guidance activities is available. The kids participate in work placements so they can make a conscious choice of a profession. This is an actual internship at a production, technology, or business organization, where the children learn how to work for real, master highly demanded skills and try on the nuances of the profession.