The Skills That Matter

Teaching Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Competencies in Any Classroom

"This book does an excellent job of not only telling and showing what should be done to include these competencies in a high school curriculum, but also giving specific implementation steps that can be taken. So many books spout theory without providing adequate information for putting it into practice. This one does both very well, and even provides step-by-step planning."

"If you think that this generation of students is like the last, then think again. This book is timely for educators who are challenged with preparing all students for their post-secondary opportunities. Every student needs a healthy balance of strong academic knowledge and appropriate interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. Academics alone will not guarantee students’ success, but those who have the ability to employ quality interpersonal and intrapersonal skills will have a greater opportunity for success in education and the workforce. This is an essential guide for those who prepare students for the 21st century. Schools must not just teach the critical academic skills but also the sometimes forgotten skills of how to communicate effectively as a team, believe in your own ability to accomplish a difficult task, and grow from each experience."

"If students are going to flourish, they need to know how to think and act in ways that build healthy relationships. This important new book from Pattie Noonan and Amy Gaumer Erickson offers a roadmap for teachers to help students learn and practice the most important competencies for social success at school and in the world."

"It's all there in the competency wheel - a comprehensive framework spanning the grade levels, which identifies and demonstrates the skills needed to develop healthy, successful individuals. Having implemented the framework within our program, we know first-hand the positive results it has produced. Authors Amy Gaumer Erickson and Pattie Noonan have brought together insight, organization, and measure to create a practical, systematic guide for educators, parents, and students."

"The message of The Skills That Matter is right on target with curriculum changes that must occur if we are to adequately prepare our students for the world that awaits them. Authors Pattie Noonan and Amy Gaumer Erickson not only make a compelling case for teaching intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive skills, but also provide teachers with the practical means to do so."

"During a statewide tour of Kansas communities, including business and industry, over 2,000 Kansans told us that the majority of skills that students need to be successful are in the areas of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. As a state agency, we felt that it was our obligation to give teachers the tools to instill these skills in our students. We did not have to look any further than the work of Amy and Pattie, with their research-based College and Career Competencies Framework. The KSDE is partnering with Amy and Pattie to provide this valuable resource to all Kansas school districts so all of our students graduate with the skills necessary to be successful after high school graduation. Kansans told us “what” they wanted, and this book gives them the “how.”

"To paraphrase a time-honored idiom, the 21st century workplace is “not your father’s or mother’s workplace.” Those workplaces were rooted in assumptions of secure jobs in stable organizations, and career development consisted of a fixed sequence of stages: from career exploration and training to job entry to mid-career advancement to retirement. Today, there are no guarantees of secure jobs or stable organizations. Career guidance professionals advise young people to expect to switch jobs frequently, maybe as often as every three to five years; that they will need, somehow, to be prepared for jobs that currently don’t yet exist; and that they need to make their own “life designs” rather than count on the company to provide a job for life. What are the skills young people will need to succeed in the 21st century workplace? Perseverance, initiative, self-regulation, goal setting, adaptability, teamwork, assertiveness, creative thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, time management…in essence, they will need the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that Noonan and Gaumer Erickson so ably lay out in The Skills That Matter. This timely book lays out a roadmap for teachers to equip young people with the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in tomorrow’s workplace. The research-based student competencies and the implementation elements in the College and Career Competency Framework provide the “how” and the “what” for young people to achieve successful adult outcomes. The Skills That Matter provides a user-friendly, practical resource to enable educators to, in essence, enable young people to create rich, fulfilling lives."

"The Skills that Matter assists schools in taking the components of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive competencies from research to practice. By embedding these skills into the everyday fabric of a school, Amy Gaumer Erickson and Pattie Noonan help ensure that students will have multiple exposure to these competencies in a more natural learning environment than ever before. This book is very practitioner friendly."

"To thrive in today’s workforce our youth must be equipped to champion their own career development. While knowledge and credentials will always be starting points for career readiness, intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies are increasingly central to rewarding, long-term career success. The Skills that Matter connects these competencies in meaningful and measurable ways across academic areas. Having worked alongside state-sponsored career and workforce development initiatives for over 45 years, intoCareers is excited to see many gaps addressed by these scalable and evidence-based instructional tools."