By Dr. Harry Tennant
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 8 to be Great and 21st Century SkillsRichard St. John's, The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to be Great is the distillation of a large number of interviews with successful people into the most critical lessons for success. He interviewed about 500 successful people in diverse fields and collected additional interviews of successful people, compiling a big database on their thoughts on the keys to success. St. John identified about 300 traits and from those, he identfied eight major traits, shared most widely. The eight traits are listed below.
One of the interesting characteristics of these traits is that they are not inate. They are thought to be learnable, which suggests that they can help nearly anyone achieve their success in their lives. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills advocates teaching and assessing students on skills that go beyond the typical core curriculum. The 21st Century Skills include
This list of skills certainly looks like good skills for students to acquire. But if St. John is correct, and his list of traits are the most critical for success, what are the right skills to teach?
It is debatable, of course, whether St. John's eight traits are truly the most important. But if we assume for a moment that they are, shouldn't we teach students to acquire the traits for success? |