5.1.3 SCANS Reports

Today we are going to talk about the "forgotten half". The current curriculum is defined by preparing students for college admission standards. About half the student population go on to college. The other half of the people who don't go to college pretty much spend their school years as kind of onlookers looking at the folks who are getting prepared for college. They are really the definition of the forgotten half. What we need to do is bridge this gap andincorporate students who might have other strengths that overshadow their academics, like an appreciation of vocational and technical skills. What we need to have, since not everyone will go to college, is a new definition of basic skills. Here I want to recommend something to you called the SCANS report. The SCANS report is the Secretary's Commission for the Achievement of Necessary Skills. One of the reasons it is important to me is this great definition of basic skills comes not from the Department of Education, but from the Department of Labor. It was motivated by the concerns in the mid '80's that the United States was getting uncompetitive, so people wanted todefine what skills would be necessary for the workplace of the 21st century. Another important thing is that I find virtually no one who disagrees with the SCANS report findings.

First of all in the SCANS report they define "competencies." They list the competencies that effective workers can productively use, and they organize these competencies around five elements: resources, interpersonal skills, information, systems, and technology.

Resources
The SCANS reports say that effective workers need to be able to allocate time, money, materials, space, and staff. This is a very different dimension than the old reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Interpersonal skills
The second big competency has to do with interpersonal skills. This is something that is almost totally left out in most educational programs. It has to do with working on teams, teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating,and working with people with diverse backgrounds. These interpersonal skills are really a very important part oflearning to live in this very complex, diverse, interdependent world

Information
The third category is information. It is acquiring and evaluating data. Evaluating data is really hard because there are so many sources of data now. Organizing and maintaining files is a real skill that most of us really struggle with all the time.

Systems
The fourth competency is competency with systems. This is a novel idea that deals with understanding social, organizational, and technological systems, monitoring and correcting performances, and designing or improving systems. That is a lot of big words, but what it comes down to saying is that we sometimes don't understand the
organizations that we are a part of, such as family systems. The sexism of undervaluing the role of the homemaker, not recognizing that kids have rights, or not recognizing that the father has a responsibility to the household are all failings in system competancy.

Technology
The final competency they list is technology. Technology is very simply selecting equipment and tools, andselecting/operating ideal technology for each situation is also a vital skill.

What are the five elements that workers competencies are based on?
How can teachers across America and across the curriculum teach their students in a way that allows them to finish high school with the elements necessary for effective work or further education that are outlined in the SCANS Report? How can they effectively use the report as a guide for their curriculum of social behavior (studies)?