Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby

Let’s talk about society’s data issue. In today’s world, we’ve got a bunch of things that should be happening with our data that aren't and a bunch of things that shouldn't be happening with our data that are. When it comes to skills, why isn’t our data more readily accessible to us? Why should we have to pay our colleges and educational institutions for copies of our transcripts and degrees? Matt Gee, data scientist, and CEO at BrightHive joins Kelly to discuss what liberating skills data would do for the future of learning and work.  

Matt believes that liberating skills data will allow a lot more people to be gainfully employed, loving what they do. 

Big Takeaways:  

• (5:49) We've got a bunch of things that should be happening with data that aren't and a bunch of things that shouldn't be happening with our data that are happening all the time. We've got to renegotiate the social contract around data. 
• (10:39) Liberating skills data is a key part of helping everyone have more direct control over their own stories and outcomes.  
• (26:07) If we can provide everyone with a higher level of insight into themselves and the market, we'll end up with a lot more folks, not just gainfully employed, but loving what they do and able to adapt to changes as they come. 

Brighthive.io 

SkillsBaby.com

Struggle is relative, but no matter how deep, can lead to the discovery of your purpose. In this episode, Kelly is joined by Michelle Daniel, founding member and chair of the board of Constructing Our Future. She is interested in the collateral consequences of criminal convictions for people and families directly impacted by mass incarceration. Through her own experience with incarceration and her journey to re-entry, Michelle developed an incredible passion for helping other incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women survive and thrive. Her work with Constructing Our Future is committed to removing the stigma of incarceration so that people that re-enter society and find both support and success.  

Michelle’s favorite quote is “To whom much is given, much is required.” 

Big Takeaways:  

• (24:50) Constructing Our Future is a transitional safe, welcoming home for formerly incarcerated women. When they are living in our home, they have two options on the educational track or construction track so that they can either finish a credential that they started in prison or before, and didn't get done, or they can go the vocational track. 
• (29:55) There are over 45,000 collateral consequences of criminal convictions that are legal barriers to formerly incarcerated people reentering society. But legal derives from the social and the social collateral consequences of criminal convictions literally apply a taint of criminality upon formerly incarcerated people that follow them throughout their entire life. 
• (34:00) I would say "To whom much is given much is required." And if you look about your life and you see that you have, you are required to give. You haven't been given just for your own personal enjoyment--much is required of you beyond yourself. And when you find what that thing is that you're supposed to be doing for others, you will have a warmer heart, you will sleep better and your life will be far more rewarding." 

Constructingourfuture.com 

Twiiter: @COF_Michelle 

LinkedIn: @Michelle Daniel 

IG: @michelle_thetruth and @constructingourfuture 

What happens when we stop looking at humans as resources and start looking at them as assets? Eliminating competition can help us live happier more fulfilled lives where we follow our passions, rather than working to live. Kelly is joined by emerging technology strategist Jay Latta for a conversation on how we can build the future he envisions, so we can move past our scarcity mindset and lead with curiosity.  

Jay believes our main human need is to stay curious.  

Big Takeaways:  

• "My recommendation is mostly reading. Reading starts the fire in your imagination. We need to get back to our curiosity. There are no wrong questions, and there are no wrong answers--it's about discovering. It's about getting curious and listening to what makes you happy." 
• "Ecosystemic thinking is about collaboration and cooperation. It eliminates the outdated idea of competition. You don't need to be the biggest of the biggest simply to become a monopolist – that competitive approach is toxic." 
• "People don't go into corporate jobs to stay for the next 35-40 years anymore. After one & a half or two years, they simply go somewhere else because they're curious. That's how we break out of the linear thinking that you need your career in order to marry, have children, build a house, etc. Linear thinking does not serve our main human need, which is to stay curious." 

Skillsbaby.com

You’ve likely heard about the Montessori group, a framework of education with schools around the globe, that follows the pedagogy created by Marie Montessori in the 1900s. Montessori is a method of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play. It centers on human skills in developmental education. However, because it was built in the 1900s it often is labeled outdated or old-fashioned. Leonor Stjepic, the current CEO of the Montessori Group, joins Kelly to explain why the Montessori method is so relevant and valuable today, and how even as adults, we can employ Montessori teachings to strengthen our essential life skills 

Leonor believes human skills should be called essential life skills because the often-used term “soft skills” does not accurately describe their importance and effect.  

Big Takeaways:  

• (7:00) "[At Montessori] we're teaching children [life skills] at such a young age that they become ingrained, they become muscle memory. It's like when you learn how to drive a car as an adult--once you've learned and you've driven several times, you do it because you remember how to do it. You have that skill now. We're teaching these young children to have essential life skills, and I refuse to call them soft skills because they're not soft skills." 
• (20:00)"I've always employed people based on who they are as people rather than what skills they have. You can get some people who look amazing on paper and are awful employees because they're missing key human skills. And I've employed people who don't have qualifications or haven't finished school and they've been brilliant."  
• (25:00) "Teams are all about building relationships, respecting differences (because not everybody's the same), and being able to work with people you don't like--that's a really important skill. You have to be able to show them respect. You have to be able to interact with your customers or stakeholders, and that's all about relationships. It's all about being a well-rounded human being." 

Montessori-group.com 

Resilience is the key to thriving in a time of crisis. Resilience is an immensely valuable skill that is like a muscle needing to be used, trained, and built. In this episode, Kelly is joined by Amelie Yan Gouiffes. Amelie is a coach, speaker, and author specializing in resilience building and thriving in the time of crisis. Her experience speaking many languages and living and working all around the world gives her valuable insight into the skills it takes to succeed in times of flourishing and in times of crisis.  

Amelie dreams of a world where we can all belong and become.  

Big Takeaways:  

• (6:55) If you look at continents like Africa that are used to crises, they are managing much better through Covid than us in the Western world because we aren't used to it. Our resilience is not that strong because we've not practiced. 
• (12:56) When I worked with communities, instead of telling them what to do or guiding them or advising them, I wanted them to connect with their inner wisdom, their inner knowledge, because it's really empowering when you're able to do that. 
• (14:42) The main thing I'm hearing from team leaders in Spain and France is: 'Amelie, before Covid I was coming to work and not asking my people how they're doing because we wanted to focus on work... Now I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think is of my people. I don't know how to tell them how important they are to me. I don't know how to ask them about how they feel and listen to what they have to say because I've never done that. 

 Amelie Speaks: www.ameliespeaks.com 

EPitch Mastery Course

Book : Speak And Live Your Legacy

Did you know students spend only 20% of their time in the classroom? This means they are only focused on dedicated learning 20% of the time. That leaves huge opportunities for creating learning spaces outside of classrooms. Lifelong learning doesn’t only happen behind a desk, it should and could happen at the grocery store, the bus stop, or anywhere else. That is what Sebastien Turbot is dedicated to unveiling with his work. To build learning ecosystems at the city level, beyond traditional educational models. Sebastien is the CEO and chief strategist of EKO6, a Canadian-based consultancy that guides governments, cities, businesses, and civil society, and creating, engaging platforms that turn ideas into action, as well as a research fellow at WISE, the World Innovation Summit for Education. 

Sebastien believes education must be less siloed and support learner agency.  

Big Takeaways:  

• (8:00) “We have 21st-century students with 20th-century teachers, a 19th-century curriculum, and an 18th-century school calendar... how do we move away from that? Making sure that learning and education is less siloed, more connected to the real world. It's really about lifelong learning.” 
• (18:00) “This link between formal and informal really encourages a skills-based learning approach...It's hard skills, soft skills, social, emotional skills, collaboration, communication, creativity, empathy, foresight, [and] adaptability. So skills are really front and center of this learning ecosystems conversation.” 
• (28:00)“For me, personalized learning has been kind of taken over by the tech conversation [its] how do we develop software and algorithms that can push content to me depending on how the software assesses my level in any given topic... [instead,] how can we design systems where the learners are really in the driver's seat of their own learning?” 

Follow Sebastian: on Twitter @sturbo 

Linkedin: @Sebastien Turbot 

Follow @ekosixcommunities 

WISE - World Innovation Summit For Education

One of the most effective ways to hone life skills is through immersing yourself in other places and other cultures. Whether through books, podcasts, or actual travel, diving into other people’s stories helps you develop empathy and understanding. Kelly talks to Kyra Assibey-Bonsu about the skills she developed while traveling the world, and how that inspires her work at Blackspace, an organization that utilizes the black space manifesto for neighborhood design strategy in Black and Brown communities 

Kyra believes storytelling provides everyone with the ability to empathize and understand the marginalized and unheard voices that are not commonly foregrounded in media, history books, and beyond. 

Big Takeaways:  

• (12:30) The Blackspace manifesto “enables you to walk in a way in which you are empathizing or at least actively listening...one of the principles is be a humble listener...you don't listen to respond, you listen to actually listen.” 
• (16:00)” I do think it's incredibly crucial that we walk in a world with an empathetic eye and that we are more cognizant of the struggles of those that we don't typically see.” 
• (17:00)” Whether it is, you can travel physically traveling in your mind through books, through stories or audio stories of conversations are important...you can travel to those places by movies, by audiobooks, by reading, and that's one thing...I hope that everyone is also still making an effort to really broaden their mind in a way that will lead to a better society.” 

Blackspace

Follow Kyra: IG @kymab  

LinkedIn: @Kyra Assibey Bonsu 

Twitter: @KyraBonsu (https://twitter.com/KyraBonsu/) 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyra.bonsu 

Podcast Instagram: No Country for Moving  

The future of skills is at the intersection of technical skills for the digital economy, higher cognitive functioning, and social-emotional learning. The way we look at our education structures needs to shift in order to satisfy these future-ready skills needs. This week, Kelly is joined by Mark Sparvell, an award-winning educator with over twenty-five years of experience leading improvement for schools, systems, higher ed, and professional associations. In his current role with Microsoft, Mark is interested in how we can empower every learner on the planet to achieve more.  

Mark believes the aim isn't to develop second-class robots, it's to develop first-class humans. 

Big Takeaways:  

• (7:00) “Emotions are the gatekeeper to motivation, to cognition and attention. They are the contributing factor to personal success, to organizational success, to health, to well-being, to productivity as an inoculation against uncertainty and ambiguity and stresses in life.” 
• (21:00) “One of the things that I think is the greatest kind of a misname is when people talk about soft skills, because there are a lot harder to learn or a lot harder to apply. And they're hard, unfortunately, to measure, which is what their greatest challenge is because you can't really easily measure that on a standardized test. And we avoid that. Unfortunately, we treasure what we measure.” 
• (30:00) “At the end of the day, you know, we want young people to be able to, get a job, to keep a job. Or to create a job because we know that ultimately if we want young people to be active and informed citizens who are capable of making ethical and responsible decisions and contributing purposefully and positively to society, you know, they need this beautiful blend of this new future in skills.” 

Follow Mark on Twitter @sparvell 

Join Mark’s Facebook Group: Social-Emotional Learning in Education: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SELinEDU 

Microsoft Education  

Workplaces cannot afford to miss out on one of the most valuable resources. Parents, and more specifically, mothers. There is an incredible power that is gained from the responsibility of caregiving that is an asset to any business, organization, or institution. The trick is to apply self-awareness to your experiences so that you can translate them to other opportunities and spaces.  

Kelly is joined by Ricarda Zezza, the founder and CEO of Lifeed to discuss how caregivers can step into their power at work. Lifeed is the only learning platform in the world that transforms life transitions and care activities such as parenting, caring for an elderly person, or going through a crisis into opportunities to train soft skills, or as we like to call them, life skills. 

Riccarda believes that caregiving is a superpower. 

Big Takeaways: 

• (5:28) “What we can do, the kind of caregiving attitudes we have, the capacity we have of communicating, of understanding the instance we have, the empathy we can bring to the workplace, but also to the world they are needed. And we can see that now. I mean, it's pretty clear that the world needs more care.” 
• (7:03) “While our children grow, our mind keeps on growing with them. They change every day and they challenge us to understand every day, a new reality. And that's an incredible exercise of mental agility...It will be easier for you to keep on learning as you are asked to do nowadays.” 
• (20:50) “Time is a very little factor nowadays, because...machines have changed the idea of time. Humans are about capacity. Humans are about attention intuition. It's about creativity. It's about how we manage change or those skills that we only have and machines can have them.” 

Lifeed.io: https://lifeed.io/en/ 

Follow Riccarda on Linkedin @Riccarda Zezza 

Book mentioned: The 100 Year Life by Lynda Grafton: http://www.100yearlife.com/ 

One of the most devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is that social distancing has made learning extra challenging. Particularly, social-emotional learning. The skills such as confidence, and self-awareness that are developed through social-emotional collaboration with others are essential for not only students in school, but adults in any walk of life.

Danielle De La Fuente created an incredible solution to this problem with her work at Amal Alliance. Amal Alliance is a non-governmental non-profit organization that provides displaced and disfranchised children worldwide with social development programs that help cope with the invisible scars of trauma and the learning fundamentals that guarantee them future opportunities to succeed. 

Danielle believes learning can and should take place anywhere and at any time.  

Big Takeaways:  

• (5:50)“Forget about living in a war zone or surviving conflict. Even just in everyday life, you need to really have these bases to be very accepting and just put yourself in other people's shoes and just remove judgment. It really makes for a much better society at large.” 
• (16:15)“Let's look at just self-awareness, I think right now, even just being able to name your emotion is something that a lot of people are unfamiliar with...So naming it and then figuring out different ways that you can manage that I think has been a key to the children.” 
• (26:10)“The COVID pandemic obviously had so many challenges and, we have to make note of that, but I also think it was a real opportunity to re-imagine how we learn and how learning can take place anywhere at any time. And that includes all ages.” 

AmalAlliance.org: Follow on IG, FB, LI, and Twitter 

Follow Danille on LinkedIn @Danielle De La Fuente and Instagram at @dani_delafuente 

 Social-Emotional Learning Graphic