LIFE SKILL EDUCATION
World Health
Organization (WHO) defined Life Skills as "the abilities for adaptive and
positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands
and challenges of everyday”.
LIFE SKILL EDUCATION
According to UNICEF, Life Skills is a behavior change or behavior development
approach designed to address balance of three areas:
• Knowledge
• Attitude
• Skills.
Life skill has been
classified into three broad categories:
• Thinking skills: Thinking skills are the
skill that enhances the logical faculty of the brain using an analytical
ability, thinking creatively and critically, and developing problem-solving
skills and improving decision-making abilities.
• Social skills: Social
skills include interpersonal skills, communication skills, leadership skills,
management skills, advocacy skills, co-operation and team building skills, etc.
• Emotional skills:
Emotional skills, involves, knowing and being comfortable with oneself. Thus, self–
management, including managing/coping with feelings, emotions, stress and
resisting peer and family pressure.
Importance of teaching
life skills
The promotion of healthy child and adolescent
development;
Primary prevention of
some key causes of child and adolescent death, disease and disability;
Socialization;
Preparing young people for changing social
circumstances.
Improve quality and efficiency of the education system
The promotion of life long learning
The promotion of peace
The world bodies such
as UNICEF, UNESCO, and WHO list the ten core Life Skills as:
1. Self-awareness
2. Critical thinking
3. Creative thinking
4. Decision making
5. Problem Solving
6. Effective
communication
7. Interpersonal
relationship
8. Empathy
9. Coping with stress
10. Coping with emotion
Self-awareness includes
recognition of ‘self’, our character, our strengths and weaknesses, desires and
dislikes. Developing self-awareness can help us to recognize when we are
stressed or feel under pressure. It is often a prerequisite to effective
communication and interpersonal relations, as well as for developing empathy
with others.
Critical thinking is
an ability to analyze information and experiences in an objective manner.
Critical thinking can contribute to health by helping us to recognize and
assess the factors that influence attitudes and behaviour, such as values, peer
pressure and the media.
Creative thinking is
a novel way of seeing or doing things that is characteristic of four components
– fluency (generating new ideas), flexibility (shifting perspective easily),
originality (conceiving of something new), and elaboration (building on other
ideas).
Decision making
helps us to deal constructively with decisions about our lives. This can have
consequences for health. It can teach people how to actively make decisions
about their actions in relation to healthy assessment of different options and,
what effects these different decisions are likely to have.
Problem solving
helps us to deal constructively with problems in our lives. Significant
problems that are left unresolved can cause mental stress and give rise to
accompanying physical strain.
Interpersonal
relationship skills help us to relate in positive
ways with the people we interact with. This may mean being able to make and
keep friendly relationships, which can be of great importance to our mental and
social well-being. It may mean keeping, good relations with family members,
which are an important source of social support.
Empathy
- To have a successful relationship with our loved ones and society at large,
we need to understand and care about other peoples’ needs, desires and
feelings. Empathy is the ability to imagine what life is like for another
person. Without empathy, our communication with others will amount to one-way
traffic. Empathy can help us to accept others, who may be very different from
ourselves.
Effective communication
means that we are able to express ourselves, both verbally and non-verbally, in
ways that are appropriate to our cultures and situations. This means being able
to express opinions and desires, and also needs and fears. And it may mean
being able to ask for advice and help in a time of need.
Coping with stress
means recognizing the sources of stress in our lives, recognizing how this
affects us, and acting in ways that help us control our levels of stress, by
changing our environment or lifestyle and learning how to relax.
Coping with emotions
means involving recognizing emotions within us and others, being aware of how
emotions influence behaviour and being able to respond to emotions
appropriately. Intense emotions like anger or sadness can have negative effects
on our health if we do not respond appropriately
Different activities
that can be used to enhance Life Skills in Students are as follows:
Classroom Discussions:
An activity, providing opportunities for students to learn and practice turning
to one another in solving problems. Enables students to deepen their
understanding of the topic and personalize their connection to it.
Brainstorming:
It allows students to generate ideas quickly and spontaneously. Helps students
use their imagination and think out of the box. Good discussion starter because
the class can creatively generate ideas. It is essential to evaluate the pros
and cons of each idea or rank ideas according to certain criteria.
Role Plays:
Along with being a fun activity and involves whole class, to be active and
participative, it also provides an excellent strategy for practicing skills;
experiencing how one might handle a potential situation in real life;
increasing empathy for others and their point of view; and increasing insight
into own feelings.
Groups: Groups are helpful
when the time is limited as it maximizes student input. Allows students
interactions, allows to, know, one another better which in a way enhances team
building and team work.
Educational Games and
Simulations: It promotes fun, active learning, and
rich discussion as participants work hard to prove their points or earn points.
They require the combined use of knowledge, attitudes, and skills and allow
students to test out assumptions and abilities in a relatively safe
environment.
Analysis of Situation
and Case Studies: It gives a chance, to analyze,
explore, challenges, dilemmas and safely test solutions for; providing
opportunities for working together in groups, sharing idea, new learning and
gives insight and promotes sometimes to see things differently. Case studies
are like powerful catalysts for thought and discussion.
Engaging in this
thinking process; students improve their own, critical
thinking, decision-making skills. It also gives chance to confront with risks
or any challenges and find ways to cope with it.
Story-Telling:
Can help students think about local problems and develop critical thinking
skills, creative skills to write stories, or interact to tell stories.
‘Story-Telling’ lends itself to draw analogies or make comparisons, help
discover healthy solutions. It also enhances attention, concentration,
listening skills and develops patience and endurance.
Debates: Provides opportunity to
address a particular issue in depth and creatively. Health issues lend
themselves well: students can debate, for instance, whether smoking should be
ban in public places in a community. It allows students to defend a position
that may mean a lot to them. It offers a chance to practice higher thinking
skills.
References:
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1126842.pdf
https://cbse.nic.in/cce/life_skills_cce.pdf
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/240313/4/04_chapter%201.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311883141_Significance_Of_Life_Skills_Education
Prajapati, Ravindra. Sharma, Bosky. Sharma, Dharmendra (2017), Significance Of Life Skills Education ,Contemporary Issues in Education Research – First Quarter 2017 Volume 10, Number 1. Jour10.19030/cier.v10i1.9875
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