generosity

Google studies find STEM less important than soft skills

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Two recent research projects into hiring practices at Google are upending the commonly held notion that students should focus primarily on STEM subjects to succeed beyond school, pointing instead to “soft skills” as the most important qualities.

Cathy N. Davidson, CUNY professor and author of The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, recently highlighted the research at Google and other studies that stress the importance of “soft skills”—communications, equality, generosity, empathy, emotional intelligence, and others—as critical to success in the workplace.

Davidson explained how Google initially focused its hiring practices on recruiting computer science students with top grades from elite universities, but ultimately changed its approach based on its own research.

“In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last,” Davidson wrote in a column for The Washington Post.

“The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others’ different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.”

The results prompted Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to employ anthropologists and other experts to conduct further research, and convinced Google to rework its hiring practices to include students with humanities majors, artists, and MBAs.

More recent Google research titled Project Aristotle, published last spring, confirmed the company is moving in the right direction.

“Project Aristotle analyzes data on inventive and productive teams. Google takes pride in its A-teams, assembled with top scientists, each with the most specialized knowledge and able to throw down one cutting-edge idea after another,” Davidson wrote. “Its data analysis revealed, however, that the company’s most important and productive new ideas come from B-teams comprised of employees who don’t always have to be the smartest people in the room.”

“Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence. And topping the list: emotional safety,” writes Davidson.

The results jibe with other studies by the National Association of Colleges and Employers that analyzed the most-sought after qualities by 260 large and small companies, which also ranked communication and other soft skills above others.

The Content of Their Character, a summary of research into character education in a wide variety of schools, highlights the benefits of soft skills for student success. James Davison Hunter and Ryan Olson, with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, note that “attitudes, behaviors, and strategies . . . also underpin success in school and at work—capacities such as self-motivation, perseverance, and self-control, but also empathy, truthfulness, and character more broadly.”

The underlying message, according to Davidson, is that schools should resist focusing primarily on technical skills to promote a more broad-based perspective because: “We desperately need the expertise of those who are educated to the human, cultural, and social as well as the computational.”

“STEM skills are vital to the world in which we live today,” Davidson wrote, “but technology alone, as Steve Jobs famously insisted, is not enough.” It’s the foundational soft skills—and higher virtues—that define the most successful teammates, colleagues, and friends.

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues offers many resources—including an inspiring lesson on Anne Frank—for educators looking to cultivate soft skills that will help students succeed in both school and life.

Russian luger shares his sled with American

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Photo courtesy of Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0

At their core, the Olympics are a testament to the competitive spirit. However, amidst all of the celebration surrounding individual and team triumphs currently underway in Pyeongchang, American luger Chris Mazdzer has revealed that generosity and friendship also have a role to play in the proceedings.

Following his weekend competition, Mazdzer told reporters that an unnamed Russian luger had shared his sled with him while training in Latvia before the Olympic games, reported The Washington Post.

Mazdzer credits the kind gesture as helping him snap out of a slump and become the first ever American medalist in men’s single luge. At the end of the Olympics opening weekend, he ended up on the podium in the silver-medal position.

Mazdzer’s slump came at the start of 2018, as he trained in Latvia and saw himself significantly dropping in the world rankings. Apparently other racers noticed what he was going through. Mazdzer was approached by the Russian luger, and through “some broken language of smiles and handshakes and high-fives,” the Russian convinced the American to take his sled.

“The Russian racer felt his own Olympic hopes were fading . . . but he wanted to help the American veteran do his best,” said The Washington Post. Mazdzer was unsure if he understood the generous offer from his Russian competitor: “It’s like, ‘This is your competitive advantage; this is everything. Are you sure? . . . [He’s] like, ‘Yeah, just do it.'”

Ultimately, Mazdzer welcomed the generosity of his Russian counterpart. Though he didn’t end up using the sled in competition, the event reminded Mazdzer that, “[W]e all look out for each other. We all want the best for each other . . . I think what it shows is that we do care about each other. There is a human connection that we have, that crosses countries, that cross cultures, and sport is an amazing way to accomplish that.”

Different sports have different cultures, but each culture leaves an indelible mark on the athletes who are formed in it. As Mazdzer said of his initial confusion at the offer, he didn’t think luge was a sport where head-to-head competitors would go to such lengths to help one another. He may have underestimated how the sport’s culture of competition had also bred an environment of care and respect.

Sport indeed is one important sphere of what James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson call a “moral ecology” in The Content of Their Character, a new publication from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. They explain that “all social institutions rest upon distinctive ideals, beliefs, obligations, prohibitions, and commitments—many implicit and some explicit—and these are rooted in, and reinforced by, well-established social practices.”

The practice of training side-by-side with Olympic competitors is formative. The generosity that Mazdzer’s Russian friend showed is formative. The culture of a training community shapes an athlete’s identity—whether in Little League or training for the Olympics.

The Positive Coaching Alliance has some good resources on how to incorporate character and identity formation into one’s work as a youth coach. And even if your athletes never compete in the Games, they can learn to have the character of an Olympian.

Basketball star learned generosity at home

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Charlotte Hornets forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (MKG) took 10 children to Dick’s Sporting Goods with the Partners for Parks afterschool program, each with a $100 gift card. That habit of generosity is one that he learned from his mother and one he practiced as a boy.

When MKG was a boy in New Jersey, he’d double-dip into his school lunch account to make sure a classmate got something to eat. He was taught empathy by his family and was reminded that there is always enough to share.

In the sporting goods store, MKG coaxed kids toward such necessities as shoes and clothes. If a child was attracted to an $80 pair of sneakers, he’d show them a $40 pair and asked if the difference was enough to spend most of the $100 on the more expensive pair.

MKG was formed by a strong family culture. As his mother, Cindy Richardson, told the Charlotte Observer, “That’s where it comes from: a family of service, of Christian and sympathetic people. He was raised that way, so I wouldn’t expect him to be any different.”

Richardson said she started her son doing community service when he was very young. “When he was 2, we would feed the homeless on Sunday. We adopted families for Thanksgiving and Christmas his whole life, so this is just an extension of his upbringing,” she said.

In The Tragedy of Moral Education, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture founder James Davison Hunter contends that despite the decline of character, pockets of character-building practices survive. “This is not to say that we have seen the last of character, or the moral qualities of which it is made. It will be found, here and there, in pockets of social life—within families and communities that still, somehow, embody a moral vision.”

MKG’s family is one of those “pockets of social life . . . that still, somehow, embody a moral vision.” It leads to integrity: “That’s where I come from. That who I am as a person on the court and off the court,” says Kidd-Gilchrist.

Teachers looking to establish that kind of “pocket” of social life in their classroom or school can begin with a lesson like Make a Difference to One that teaches the basics of how to genuinely greet and welcome another person. Some years from now, those students may be able to say, “That’s where I come from.”

Students decide where the money goes

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In Fulton, Illinois each homeroom at River Bend Middle School received $100 to give back to the community. The only catch is that it had to have a personal connection to students.

Since the beginning of the school year, Principal Kathleen Schipper has allocated Wednesdays for working on community projects. She had only one stipulation for the students’ $100 contribution: Make it relatable. She didn’t want the donations to go toward a broad effort. Rather, she wanted a personal connection. The projects were kept secret—even Schipper had no idea what the students were doing.

Donations were made to cancer research and the nearby White Oaks Therapeutic Equestrian Center, which provides programs to the physically and mentally disabled. Two homerooms made fleece blankets for a children’s hospital and the Harbor Crest Nursing Home. Eighth-graders made a blanket for a therapy dog. The Student Council filled boxes with supplies and amenities for new students on their first day of school. A 6th-grade class donated money to the Wounded Warrior Project and shared stories of loved ones in the military.

Some classes became inspired by their peers’ personal tragedies or maladies, donating, for example, to brain tumor awareness.

Teachers report that students seem to have a clear concept of volunteerism and philanthropy. Special Education teacher Connie Hoffman sees the school going forward with community involvement. “This is not a one-shot thing,” she told the Clinton Herald. “Mrs. Schipper would be proud.”

Schools are full of rules, rewards, and consequences. All of these are in place in order to bring children to the place where they freely and willingly choose the good without the need for enticements. Yet sometimes schools neglect to give children this freedom and responsibility.

Principal Kathleen Schipper is nurturing character in her students by providing the opportunity to do good in what Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture founder James Davison Hunter, calls moral autonomy. Hunter explains it this way in The Death of Character: “Character implies the moral autonomy of the individual in his or her capacity to freely make ethical decisions. The reason, very simply, is that controlled behavior cannot be moral behavior for it removes the element of discretion and judgment.”

Teachers can give students this moral autonomy in designing service projects or gifts for the good of the community with this Advisory in Action lesson from Learning to Give.

9-year-old boy inspires others with generosity

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A nine-year-old boy in York, Pennsylvania, was moved by compassion when he saw a YouTube video of a homeless boy in freezing weather, and he took action.

Tristan Rankin gathered 75 coats for the homeless. Then he started a non-profit called Coats of Friendship, with a board of 6-to-11-year-old students from Friendship Elementary School in nearby Glen Rock. For several years, the students have collected jackets and coats and have given them out to homeless neighbors on the streets and parks of the city. Tristan and his friends have made the coat drive bigger and better each year.

Now the whole school is involved. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, the students and their families gave out 1,500 coats and jackets at LifePath Christian Ministries. Each coat is donated with a handwritten note meant to tell the recipients that they are loved and cared about.

For Jackie Baez, who fled the hurricane in Puerto Rico with almost no personal belongings, the distribution carried a feeling of inclusion as well as physical warmth. “I’m here,” she told ABC 27, “and I feel warm and well-wanted.”

“I think everyone deserves to be warm,” Rankin said. “Maybe at one time they made a poor decision. That doesn’t mean they’re not human.”

Coats of Friendship collects winter items throughout the year. They can be contacted through their Facebook page.

It is natural for us to care for the people we know—our friends and family. Tristan Rankin is pushing beyond what’s natural to care for strangers, and to do it with handwritten notes that create a human connection between the kids and the recipients of the coats.

Rankin’s inspiring work spotlights the role of what University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter calls moral attachment in his book The Death of Character. “It reflects the affirmation of our commitments to a larger community, the embrace of an ideal that attracts us, draws us, animates us, inspires us.”

Rankin’s work was featured in a short video that will inspire children and adults alike.

Resources from the Jubilee Centre can help students practice giving and receiving kindness with each other as a step toward being a kind person.

One school’s gift to another lifts spirits after Hurricane Irma

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Students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Clifton, NJ, are learning what it’s like to help others in need, a lesson on character catalyzed by a connection with a Florida school ravaged by Hurricane Irma.

Veteran Wilson teacher Fran Chiarelli learned about the plight of Pinecrest Elementary School in Immokalee, Fla. through Cindy Reinhardt Gerber, a Pinecrest teacher who worked with Chiarelli at a school in Clifton years ago, NorthJersey.com reports.

In early September, Hurricane Irma ravaged the Immokalee community, where 99 percent of the mostly migrant community lives in extreme poverty. The storm decimated trailers and wiped out the local tomato crop families in the area rely on to survive.

Pinecrest lost supplies, and local families lost their homes, clothes, and jobs in the storm.

Chiarelli relayed the situation to Woodrow Wilson Principal Maria Romeo, and the two organized a two-week fundraising drive that involved the entire school community, which also includes a high percentage of low income students.

“Even though we have many disadvantaged children right here in Clifton, they were able to give of themselves and realize the importance of helping other people,” Chiarelli told North Jersey.

Romeo said the experience is tied in with the district’s focus on character education by giving students the opportunity to learn empathy.

“A disadvantaged student here may live in an apartment with a roof over their heads,” she said, while kids in Immokalee are struggling with life in “the hull of a trailer.”

“It was a good opportunity for them to understand poverty on a completely different level,” Romeo said.

Woodrow Wilson students, parents and staff, baked and sold their goods, while students also raised money through class “penny wars”—a competition to collect the most change. After two weeks, the school raised nearly $10,000 to help Pinecrest buy cots for the community, bags of food for families, and other essentials.

Pinecrest Principal Susan Jordan told North Jersey the donation was by far the biggest the community received in the wake of Hurricane Irma, though other local communities also contributed to Immokalee’s recovery.

“It gives us a level of comfort so we can do what we want to do and what we need to do and know it will actually happen,” Jordan said.

That type of gratitude is what philosopher Laurence M. Thomas describes as “the most basic sentiment of interpersonal interaction.”

“There is no greater sign a people are socially invisible than that they not be seen as meriting gratitude for the good that they do on behalf of others,” Thomas wrote in The Hedgehog Review, a publication of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. “When a person acts with good will towards another, then she or he is acknowledging that the other has moral value. Gratitude is a natural response to being so treated.”

The gracious donation from Woodrow Wilson students also belies concerns about America’s focus on materialism that dates back to observations by French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville in 1833.

Tocqueville worried that “America was devolving into a nation of self-sufficient Robinson Crusoes,” researchers Arlie Hoschild and Sarah Garrett wrote in The Hedgehog Review. “If we are too individualistic, if we devalue moral sentiments, Tocqueville thought, our attention will then turn to materialism. Speaking of Americans in 1833, he observed that the individual arising from their relative equality ‘lays open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification.’”

Tocqueville was concerned that Americans would become obsessed with the material, and focus less on virtues like gratitude and empathy that strengthen communities.

The Florida donation proves students in New Jersey understand gratitude and generosity, but it also goes beyond that to help to build up both communities through service to others.

Resources on helping others, like “How Would You Help?” from the Jubilee Centre, can help students understand ways they can give back to their communities.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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