Back to Basics: 5 Life Skills to Teach High School Students [Episode 251]

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:00]:
When I think back to my own high school experience, which is now well over 2 decades ago, it is truly wild just how much has changed in terms of education and like what is taught, what needs to be taught, and honestly, just like the general culture of the classroom. Like everything has changed so much. And even more recently, I was just talking to a friend this week who has gone back to the classroom. after a period of time away with her little ones, and we were catching up and she was like, everything is so different. The students are different, the classroom’s different, the whole school culture is different with admin. And that’s just been in the last 7 years for her. And I would even venture to say, based on my conversations with all of you, that yes, of course there was a massive shift in 2020 with COVID but even just in the last 2, maybe 3 years, so much has changed. with student access to AI.

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:57]:
So I think with all of these changes, it can feel really overwhelming, but I’m encouraged when I think back to episode 244 and my conversation with our guest Katie, when she talked about, you know what, all of teaching is just pivoting. And if you are like, I need help with pivoting, you need to go listen to episode 244 because Katie is like the queen of pivoting. I also think though, yes, it’s about pivoting, But it’s also about so much more than content coverage, and that’s what I wanna talk with you about today. Is content coverage important, especially if you are in an EOC or some other high-stakes course? Yes, it is important. And if you are feeling stressed right now this school year about getting through all of your content, please go listen to episode 147. It is all about getting through the content. So that is the episode for you, 147. But today I really want to talk to you about something that I think is bigger than the content and is now even more important than it ever has been before because our students don’t need to learn content as much.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:04]:
They need skills, and not just science skills, they need life skills. I think one of the most unique opportunities we have in our role as high school science educators is that we are kind of like the last people that are having the opportunity to prepare our students for life outside of the safety of our, you know, cinder block walls. We are getting our hands on them while they’re still pretty impressionable and pretty mandated to come to school every day, you know, by the government and hopefully by their parents and guardians. So we’re getting this daily or every other day interaction with them and this chance to teach them skills that are going to serve them for their entire lives. Whether or not they ever need to know the monomer and polymer of a macromolecule, or whether or not they ever need to be able to explain the 4 principles of natural selection, which, you know, they might need to do. I just had to do it to my 3rd grade son who brought home a book from school about Charles Darwin and then had all these questions. My husband, the marketing major, absolutely clueless. I was like, finally, this is my chance to shine.

Rebecca Joyner [00:03:10]:
But that is really, really niche content, and that is really, really niche information. That, yeah, it is like critical that they understand macromolecules and the principles of natural selection if you’re teaching Biology 1, for them to understand Biology 1, because that is foundational. But what are the life skills that they need to learn in our classrooms that are truly going to serve this generation of students for the rest of their lives and help them be successful in a world that looks a lot different than it did when I was leaving high school? So that’s what we’re going to cover today: 5 critical life skills I want you to be intentional about teaching this school year. Let’s dive in. This is Secondary Science Simplified, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from It’s Not Rocket Science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:19]:
Let’s get to today’s episode. Now, if you are feeling overwhelmed that this episode is just going to be another list of things that you need to do and you don’t have time to add anything else to your plate, I want to encourage you right off of the bat because I think this is actually a really worthwhile metric for you. I think sometimes if we are evaluating ourselves at the end of the school year based on our students’ test scores, based on our class average, based on how many of the standards we actually got through this year, then oftentimes we end the year really disappointed. While those aren’t bad metrics, I think those quantitative metrics are actually really good and worth just tracking so maybe you can see year over year Hey, I made these changes in my pacing. Oh, I was able to get this much further, that kind of thing. I don’t think that’s bad, but at the same time, I cannot tell you how important it is to have qualitative, more subjective goals set alongside quantitative and more objective goals. Okay. Especially because by the end of the year, like, cool, if you can check this list that I covered all 100 of these standards.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:33]:
Looking at you, Florida teachers. I cannot believe how many standards they expect you to cover in a school year. Like, that’s great, but all what matters to me is like, how do I end the year feeling about how I approach my job? Do I feel like I did the best I could within my certain capacity in this specific season that I’m in to love and care for students well? And I think if you consider adding teaching these 5 critical life skills To kind of your goals list for the year, if you’re having to write SMART goals for your admin or something like that, I think it’ll really help you end the year feeling successful, even if your test scores, your class average, your pass rate, whatever, is not as high maybe as you would like it to be. Now, you might be thinking, what inspired this episode? Like, why are we even talking about this right now? Again, I have so much on my plate. 2 real questions that I wanna share with you that were sent to me and that, that kind of motivated this conversation. First was a teacher asked me, how can we adjust our teaching so that it’s more relevant in today’s world and for the skills that students need to have. So this was kind of the kickstarter for this because I think the skills I’m going to share with you today are not revolutionary. They’ve always been important, but now more than ever in an AI generation of students that are— I find to appear to be less driven, and maybe they are still very driven But they’re hiding it more.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:59]:
They’re not like as eager to please as I feel like students in my generation when I was in high school were. They don’t naturally respect authority, that kind of thing. Also students that are more easily bored because they’re used to constant stimulation. They need these skills now than we ever, ever have. And then the other question that really inspired this that I’m going to address throughout this episode too is, how do I help other teachers on my team and my department understand That not all students excel at learning and you need to teach the skills you expect. And so if you relate to this, if you’re a department lead, a department chair, if you’re a mentor teacher, like, and this is something that you experience, send your coworkers this podcast episode. I think these are skills that we are going to tell our students day one that we’re going to be working on. And hey, I’m going to explicitly teach you these and we are going to work on it every single day.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:53]:
I think it’s really unrealistic to be frustrated with students not doing things that we have never taught them to do, or not meeting expectations that we’ve never clearly communicated and consistently reinforced. They do not know, so we need to teach them that. I actually, to help you with this, I made like a one-page PDF of these 5 life skills, and it kind of just says at the top, in this class we, and then it has like the 5 things that we do. If you want to print this out on like an 8.5 by 11 computer paper and just like laminate it, if you want to print it out on an 11 by 17, if you want to take it to Staples, have them blow it up and make a big poster for you, like do it and put it on your wall. And then you can point to these things every day and say, this is why we’re doing this, this is why we’re doing this. Like you guys learning these 5 life skills, if you leave my classroom knowing these 5 life skills and embodying them, I know you’re going to be successful moving forward. And so I think this is an opportunity to be intentional with students and also really clear with students about expectations so there’s no surprises. But in order for anything like this to become a part of your culture, you have to do it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:03]:
You have to commit to the bit. Okay, I’m going to say that a lot this episode— commit to the bit and really, really integrate these into your classroom culture. So I’m going to walk through these 5 and tell you why they’re important and then how I want you to actually teach them. Ready? Here we go. Number 1, we need to teach these students how to critically think. This is not new information. It’s always been important, but now more than ever. Students don’t need to know a lot of stuff.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:31]:
They need to be able to evaluate a ton of information as truth or as valid or as valuable versus not. That is a very hard skill. If you look at Bloom’s Taxonomy, which has been around for decades, evaluation is like One of the highest levels. We could get by when I was in high school with those lower-level Blooms, with recalling and explaining. Now we are expecting students to evaluate all of this information that they have access to. That is very, very challenging. That is critical thinking at the highest level, and that is the world that they live in. So we have to teach them how to do this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:14]:
Here is how you do it, friends. It is non-optional. It is not an option to just sit in my classroom and sit and get. You cannot just sit here for 50 minutes or 80 minutes or 90 minutes and zone out and think about who you’re asking to Sadie Hawkins and expect to be successful in this course. You walk in this room, your brain turns on, and it’s not shutting off until you walk out of this room. I genuinely think students rise to the level of the expectation that we set for them. If it’s a non-negotiable, if it’s not optional to turn off your brain, then they won’t. An analogy that is a stretch, but it is true.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:58]:
I have had a problem in my household with my children, ages 4, 7, and 8, with snacks. You know, they choose the worst snacks. They always want rainbow Goldfish that has like 1,000 dyes in it. You know, they always want like the most sugary like cereal bar that has like 24 grams of added sugar in it ever. Now, do I buy healthy snack options? Of course. I’ve got the meat sticks, the cheese sticks, the almonds, the apples. But when there’s another option, they’re always going to choose the other option that’s available to them. If you’re giving your students the option to not think critically, Then they will not think critically.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:37]:
Now, when we go to visit my best friend and roommate from college, she lives up in the Charlotte area. When we drive up there to see her once a year, she is the healthiest, most whole food-oriented person I know. Her pantry does not have one cardboard box in it because she does not buy any processed foods. Her children, for snacks, eat carrots and hummus and apples and cheese sticks. Like, not even cheese sticks because those are wrapped in plastic. Like, they will tear off a hunk of cheese. Like, they are They eat PB&Js on homemade bread. Okay, this is not an attainable level of reality for me, but guess what my children did when they were in Lauren’s house? They ate the food that she had because there were no other options.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:18]:
There were no ranch veggie straws hiding in the bottom of her pantry, and they were fine. They adapted. That is what we need to do with our students. They will change if there’s no other option for them. We have to make them— Critically think. Now, what does that look like in terms of the how? Again, first of all, we’re doing this every day. That’s what I mean by non-optional. Every single day they should expect to come into your classroom and get stuff done.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:46]:
I can tell you right now by name the different teachers I had growing up in high school that I knew like which classes were a breather that I could walk in and shut down in, and which I needed to show up and look alive for. Be a classroom that students expect to show up and look alive for, cuz they know that that’s the standard that you hold. Now, do we build in breathers for them? Of course. We cannot be pedal to the metal for 50 straight minutes, or definitely not 90 straight minutes. That is why we integrate some direct instruction. That is a breather for their brain. They are still thinking and engaging by handwriting notes, which I think is incredibly important for them to be doing something tactile, but they’re not having to think as critically as they would be in a lab or maybe in a think-pair-share or in some sort of inquiry activity. Okay, so there are breathers built in there, but at every class period that they’re coming to you, there is gonna be critical thinking that’s gonna be expected to happen.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:43]:
Their brains have to be activated. We’re also gonna scaffold things for them. Not every question is a zinger, meaning not every question is a CER, claim, evidence, reasoning opportunity. Like when you’re writing reflection questions, maybe for a lab activity. Start with the easiest ones, like summarize what you saw in the data. What was the relationship between this variable and this variable? Like, we’re gonna build. And then maybe the last question, or the second to last, third to last question, is when we say like, hey, what does this remind you of, of what we’ve been learning about in class? Like, we’re trying to get them to draw connections. Then we end with the CER, like, now really make a strong statement here.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:22]:
So we’re gonna scaffold so that we’re gonna kind of build up that endurance for them to think critically. We’re not just gonna start with the hardest question possible. We’re also gonna train our students that blank answers are not acceptable. We always write something down. This is why I’m really passionate about the R.A.D.A.R. problem-solving method that I learned from one of the schools I taught in, and I speak about extensively in my curricula. It’s so important. I will link in the show notes a link to R.A.D.A.R.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:50]:
posters and like a podcast episode you can learn more about R.A.D.A.R. But that’s why I teach RADER for any quantitative question that they’re answering. They should never leave it blank because of RADER. Now, for like a qualitative question, if they can’t think of anything to write, then train them to write a clarifying question. Say, hey, if you don’t know the answer, what’s a question you could ask to help you get to the answer? And write that down. Again, this is activating their brains so that just skipping a question is a non-option. It has to be non-optional. And the other way we do this, we get them critically thinking every day and train them in that life skill, is we do not assign busywork, period.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:30]:
We do not assign it. Everything we give them is intentional. It’s not just to fill time. Do we assign reinforcing practice problems? Of course. You have to when you’re teaching stoichiometry, when you’re teaching balancing equations, when you’re teaching kinetic and gravitational potential energy calculations. They do need reps. Mm-hmm. on those things.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:50]:
But do they need 20 of those problems? Nah, they probably need 5 to 10 max. So make it so it doesn’t just feel like you’re giving them a packet of independent work and then sending them off so that you can work at something on your desk. Everything you’re doing is intentional. This is how we teach them to critically think. Number 2 life skill we’re going to teach them is how to persist in learning new things. I love that word persist, like to keep going and learning new things. I have noticed a lot when I’m around high school students of this generation that they’re quick to give up if something is hard, or they’re quick to say, well, I’m not good at that, or that’s not my thing, and just kind of move on as opposed to seeing like, what would it look like if I persisted in trying to learn this new skill or this new Task or this new way of thinking. They need to learn how to do that.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:47]:
Here’s why this is so important. There is not a job in this world where they won’t have to self-teach themselves some things, where they won’t have to learn new things, where they won’t have to study at some point for some sort of examination or evaluation or dissertation or brief or whatever. Even if you’re a stay-at-home parent, and I don’t say even if like to lower that role, I just mean if you are a stay-at-home parent and you’re not in a traditional 9-to-5 situation, you’re most likely still reading books to learn about parenting, learning how to help your child that’s neurodivergent, learning how to help your child get better at baseball so that they can make the team. Like, we’re always learning. Pro athletes. I’ve shared this before. My husband and I are obsessed with sports documentaries. I love seeing these adults, whether it’s 40-year-old Joe Flacco, you know, or 22-year-old Cam Ward, these quarterbacks sitting there watching film for hours, taking notes, studying these plays, memorizing them to prepare for each game.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:57]:
The games on Sundays or Monday Night Football or whatever, that’s their examination that they’re having every week of did they study? Did they learn the new thing? Our students need to do that no matter what they need to do. Every field requires it in some way, even if it’s a non-traditional way, like being a professional athlete or being a parent. Okay? They need to be able to take information, even synthesized, summarized information from ChatGPT. They need to be able to take that and at some level commit some of it to memory enough that they can use it or apply it to do a task. Yes, memorization and recall is not as important now as it was 20 years ago because of the way they can Google something in 2.2 seconds, but still learning things enough to remember them so that when you’re in a conversation, when you’re on the field about to make a game-winning decision, when you’re in a courtroom taking a stand or making an opening statement, if that’s your role as a lawyer, like you have to be, you may have access to notes, but you’re not like reading them just out loud. There has to be stuff in your brain. So we have to teach our students how to essentially study and persist in learning new things. So how are we going to do that? I really believe this starts with a super basic skill of teaching students explicitly how to take notes.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:16]:
I know you might be thinking this is antiquated information. Students can have ChatGPT, Otter.ai listen to you lecture, and then that’ll take the notes for them. There is proof of the importance in the brain for a tactile connection in learning. That they move their hands and they’re moving their eyeballs as they’re writing, and that helps commit things to memories in ways that Otter.ai functioning for them does not. This is not— this is one of the situations where it’s not about the end result of having completed notes. It’s about the process of writing the notes and what that does for their brains. They need to know how to do that. If you want to know how I teach students to write notes, Episode 175 details that, but you need to teach them.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:02]:
They do not know, and they think it’s sufficient enough to just have these summaries from ChatGPT. Okay? You also need to teach them how to study. That is a skill they need to learn. I push this really hard in my first units, and then I lighten up throughout the year, hoping, you know, that they’re able to start doing this on their own. If you wanna know how I do that, episode 219 covers that. Okay, but we’re gonna teach them how to learn new things, how to study, and how to persist in learning new things. Third skill, we need to teach our students to engage in productive discussion face-to-face with other human beings. Why? Their faces are in screens.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:41]:
We have new health crises like tech neck that never existed before because no one’s necks were actually looking down like that all the time. Students are used to talking to robots on AI that are so nice to them. They could tell ChatGPT the worst thing they’ve ever done and ChatGPT would be like, you didn’t mean to. I’m sure you didn’t have those intentions. Like, they don’t know how to talk face-to-face with someone, face conflict with someone, respond to someone who may have a negative attitude. They don’t know how to do that. And this is a dying art that is going to start differentiating our students one day in the workforce. This is going to be what allows them to compete against these other people that they’re applying for jobs for, is can they speak face-to-face with human beings? Can they have a productive, engaging discussion? Can they have a personality? Okay.

Rebecca Joyner [00:21:35]:
This has to be taught so intentionally, y’all. How are we doing this? Every single day, they have to speak to you. They have to speak to your face. This is why I love popsicle sticks. Episode 246, so practical, give it a listen. How are you going to use popsicle sticks to call on and talk to each student face-to-face with you twice a class period? That’s the goal. Second, it’s about creating a safe environment for them to speak. They need to be able to ask questions.

Rebecca Joyner [00:22:03]:
The no such thing as a stupid question, I know that’s like a silly thing we’ve been talking about for decades, but they need to never be made to feel stupid for asking. I feel like this generation now more than ever does not want to look dumb. And so if you ever shame them in any way or make them feel bad for asking a question, that is not creating a safe environment for your students to speak up. And we want them to feel comfortable speaking up. Being confused does not mean they’re stupid and it doesn’t become their identity of like, I can’t do this. We teach them how to speak up and ask questions because asking questions is a great life skill too. So create that environment. If they ask a question that you’ve answered 100 times, so you’re feeling frustrated, instead of sassing back, which I get, this is hard for me.

Rebecca Joyner [00:22:53]:
My husband sometimes calls me a Sasquatch. That’s what I can be. Like, if you are just like, where have you been? What, why are you not listening to me? I wanna sass back. That’s not helpful. And that doesn’t make me, I don’t become a safe person for my children or my students when I do that. Instead, I can say, I can point to something. If I have a sign on the board or if I’ve already written something, or I could be like, ooh, we’ve actually talked about that, phone a friend. Or I’ll tell my children, ooh, ask one of your siblings, I’ve already told you what’s for dinner.

Rebecca Joyner [00:23:20]:
I don’t say, I’ve already covered this 15 times. I say, ooh, ask your siblings or look on the fridge where I keep a list of the dinners. I equip them to find the answers themselves without shaming them. That’s creating a safe environment. Now, if you’re like, how do I even get them to ask questions or talk to me? Create a list in advance of questions you can ask students. If you are personally not a natural conversationalist, that’s fine, but you need to do some work on the front end to ensure that you’re asking questions. If you use any of my It’s Not Rocket Science units, in the lecture notes, those PowerPoints, in like the 3rd folder of every unit, in the notes section of the slides, I put extra teaching tips and I’ll sometimes put questions like, ask your students this. Draw this connection like, hey, when did we see this in a previous unit? I’m putting some of those in there for you.

Rebecca Joyner [00:24:09]:
That really helps, but you can do this yourself too. Also, when your students ask a great question and you’re like, that’s a good question, write it down in a note on your phone and then go ahead and put it somewhere in the curricular resources. And that way you can ask it next year to your students if you’ve got a group that’s just like staring at you, not asking questions. That’s another way to acquire great questions if you’re not good at coming up with them. Another thing is phenomena. Y’all, if you use any sort of phenomena, that naturally gets students asking questions because they want to know why, they want to know how. Also, practice makes perfect. Like, start now.

Rebecca Joyner [00:24:46]:
Know it’s the beginning of the year, they’re not going to be that comfortable with you. It’s going to be awkward. There’s going to be some weird silent moments. But as you continue throughout the year and build relationships with them and they continue to see it’s a safe place, For them to ask questions and talk, but also that they’re not going to get off the hook. Again, talking in class is not optional. Discussion is going to happen every single day. Then they will eventually grow that muscle and be able to do that, and it’ll get easier throughout the year. And when in doubt, y’all, wait them out.

Rebecca Joyner [00:25:16]:
Do not fill silences. This is again hard for me. I am a talker. I’m a verbal processor. It’s why starting a podcast felt like breathing to me. It’s like, this is, this is what I love to do. This is my essence. Okay.

Rebecca Joyner [00:25:30]:
I’m quick to fill silences. You need to wait them out. Or what I do is the phone a friend. I grab a popsicle, I put their name back in the cup, grab a new popsicle stick and see if a friend in the class can help. This also encourages them that we’re all on the same team, which is another skill which is coming in a minute. Okay. So that’s number 3. We’re teaching them to engage in productive discussion and be able to talk face to face to people.

Rebecca Joyner [00:25:52]:
4, we’re going to teach them to do things they don’t want to do. Why? They have been catered to, this generation, so much more than ever before. We have access to so many things that we can use to kind of pacify them in an effort to support them through really hard educational times of the pandemic. We have lowered the bar so much and catered to them so much. And also in a time in society where mental health, we’ve never been more aware of mental health, which is amazing. Because of that though, we have used that as excuses to not teach students certain life skills, like doing things we don’t want them to do, like resilience, like accountability and being active learners. And in doing so, we’ve actually crippled them and told them they’re not capable. Even though there are things that are harder for some students, with different learning needs, neurodivergence, different mental health issues, we are crippling them by telling them they’re incapable.

Rebecca Joyner [00:26:55]:
We need to empower them that they are able and can do so many things, even the things they don’t want to do or don’t think they can do. This generation, now more than ever, is super entitled. I read a book before I had kids a decade ago called Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World. And I’m reading it again now because my husband and I actively try to not have entitled children, but they have access to a lot of stuff and they have a really good life. So they are entitled. And even this book is 10 years old. And even now, some of the information is so outdated because we’re even so much more entitled than we were before. So we need this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:27:32]:
They need to do things that they don’t want to do. The last reason they need to learn this is y’all. My entire life is doing stuff I do not want to do. Think about your life. Think about your day-to-day, how many things you are going to do today that you don’t want to do. That is part of being a non-self-absorbed contributor to society. In your job, in your home, at the gas station, at the grocery store, like you are going to have to do things you don’t want to do. And so we need to teach students how to have those muscles to be able to do that.

Rebecca Joyner [00:28:09]:
So the little things we’re asking them to do now they don’t want to do, like practicing nomenclature in our chemistry classes or practicing Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium calculations in our biology classes, that builds the muscle of them doing things they don’t want to do. And then they can apply that to bigger things one day, like figuring out how to pay their taxes. Or, you know, making dinner every night for the rest of their lives for all the people that live in their house, or doing whatever part of their job that they don’t wanna do. We will be doing things we don’t wanna do the rest of our lives. Okay, so how do we teach them this? Episode 145, How to Build Resilience in Post-Pandemic Students. Episode 155, How to Create Active and Accountable Learners. Go listen to those if you want support on this. But in short, first we speak truth over them that they can do this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:29:00]:
It’s actually insulting for us to give up on them and tell them otherwise. And often we don’t with our words, but we do with our actions when we constantly lower the bar or we say, oh, well, you don’t really have to do that today. No, we need to do it. Second, we make expectations clear. Third, we use small successes to build confidence. Again, this is a scaffolding. We don’t just hit the ground running with the hardest thing ever. Okay.

Rebecca Joyner [00:29:24]:
But we give them like little things like, hey, let’s just start with 2 problems and go from there. Or let’s just start with doing radar on this very first problem. Just read it and go from there. Next, we constantly revisit expectations, non-emotionally, just factually. Okay. So when students are not doing what we want them to do, and they’re being lazy and they’re complaining, we go back to, hey, here’s the expectation in this classroom. And this is why I made this little mini poster for you guys as a freebie for this podcast episode. I’m emailing it out to my list this week that this airs.

Rebecca Joyner [00:29:54]:
So if you didn’t see it in the email, just shoot me an email, rebecca@itsarocketscienceclassroom.com, or check out the show notes and I’ll link it there too. So it’ll just be like a Google Drive link because it’s so basic, but you can point to it and say, hey, one of the 5 things I’m committed to teaching you so you’re successful in life is how to do things you don’t want to do. So we’re doing that. We don’t take it as a personal affront to our character that they don’t wanna do stuff, but we just say, I’m holding the line for you because I believe in you and I know you can do this and I want you to have success in your life. So that’s why I’m holding the line. Okay? That’s how we teach them to do stuff they don’t wanna do. We make ’em do stuff they don’t wanna do every single day, and we hold the line and tell ’em they can do it. Okay.

Rebecca Joyner [00:30:33]:
So these 5 skills: critically think, persist in learning new things, engage in productive discussion with other human beings, Do things that they don’t want to do. Last but not least is group work or interpersonal skills. Like I mentioned with the having productive conversation, they have to learn human-to-human interpersonal skills because it’s a dying art and it is what is going to set them apart for the rest of their lives. Having a personality. We are becoming robots by talking to robots. And then just watching screens all day long. They have to learn how to be a whole person because their whole lives they are going to interact with other people— family, coworkers, spouses, kids, kid— their kids’ coaches. They need to learn how to work together with other people, not just through a device, but face-to-face.

Rebecca Joyner [00:31:29]:
So how do we do this? Just like with every other one of these life skills, we’re doing it every single day. Every day in my classroom, they will know that they’re gonna at least do some sort of partner work, small group work, or some sort of whole class discussion, and usually all of the above. And we’re gonna constantly interact with different people in this class. You’re gonna do a lot of work with your next door neighbor, which is whoever you’re sitting next to, but we’re gonna switch next door neighbors. I use popsicle sticks. Again, go back to episode 246, the popsicle stick episode, to hear more about this. But I use popsicle sticks to make my seating charts. So you’re constantly— every unit can be moved around and sitting next to a new person that’s going to be your next-door neighbor that you’re going to be spending a lot of time working together with over the next 2 to 3 weeks of the unit.

Rebecca Joyner [00:32:12]:
I’m making lab groups and project groups with popsicle sticks. It’s always getting mixed up. So you’re always having to figure out how to work with new people and new combinations of different people. Maybe working with Jacob isn’t that bad, but when you have to work with Jacob and Lindsay at the same time, it’s much more difficult. That’s why we’re switching it up, because learning how to navigate these new social and interpersonal situations is a critical life skill. It will challenge them and it will stretch them with every new rearrangement of classmates that they’re learning to work with. But this is a life skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Okay, so here’s my action step for you.

Rebecca Joyner [00:32:53]:
Commit to the bit. Decide to do these things and integrate them in your classroom and start doing it. Today, go print out that little pager at Staples and make it a poster if you want, so you can just point to it every time they complain about you making them talk out loud or you making them work in a group. You just point and say, this is what I’m teaching you. This is the goal. If we end the year and we’ve done this, like, we’re good. I’m going to be so proud of you. And I’m going to be proud of me.

Rebecca Joyner [00:33:19]:
Don’t fall prey to the temptation to jump in and do this for them, because then they expect you to do that. You have to teach these students that they are capable. And again, I think if you focus on these life skills this year as your barometer of what success means to you, as opposed to using the getting through all the standards as your success, you’re going to feel so good when you get to the end of the school year knowing that— did you prepare them really, really, really well for Chem 1 in college? Maybe not as much as you’d like, but did you prepare them to be a human being that’s successful and a contributor to society one day? Yeah, you really did. As always, any links mentioned, which I mentioned a lot of other podcast episodes and things like that, you can find them in the show notes at itsnotrocketscienceclassroom.com/episode251. And if you have not left a review for the podcast today but feel motivated to prioritize these life skills this year and teaching these 5 skills to your students, I would love it if you would leave a rating and a review for the podcast. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to itsnotrocketscienceclassroom.com/challenge to grab your Classroom Reset Challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free.

Rebecca Joyner [00:34:34]:
Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you, teacher friend.