Life Skills
At Chisago Lakes School District, we prepare our students to thrive in a workforce where soft skills — ex. communication, teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, giving and receiving feedback, self-discipline — are more sought after than ever.
Minnesota’s Career & College Readiness framework, local and national data on what employers look for in job candidates, and even research by our armed forces drive home the ever-increasing importance of transferable life skills in the 21st century workforce. Now more than ever, it’s critical that Wildcats graduate with the skills to work effectively in teams, organize and manage their time, self-reflect and continuously improve their leadership skills, keep a cool head in a stressful situation (e.g., a boardroom presentation), and similar life skills.
These life skills fall into five major areas:
To keep our expectations of students age-appropriate, we reference Minnesota’s grade-level benchmarks. These are similar to our academic standards but not the same — unlike academics, Chisago Lakes School District has flexibility locally regarding which of these benchmarks we address and how we do so.
We have endless opportunities across the school day to help students develop life skills. Here are three main ways that we support this learning:
