By George Couros
Most educators are aware of the “Four C’s” (Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication) and their importance in schools for ensuring the development of today’s skills in our students (I appreciate Will Richardson’s contention that “curiosity” should be the fifth “C” and is more important than the others). But there are other essential skills and traits that many schools teach, either through learning in the classroom or by providing extra-curricular activities, which are not as widely acknowledged, but are extremely important.
From my experience being a part of schools and visiting, I have noticed that great schools teach these essentials that are timeless:
1. The Value of Hard Work.
Easily one of my favorite quotes is from Jim Valvano:
“Hard work is no guarantee of success but a lack of hard work is a guarantee that there will be no success.”
I have been very thoughtful to use the word “learning” instead of “work” in most cases, but deep learning is hard work. But success, no matter how a student defines it for themselves, is something that doesn’t come without a lack of determination and effort. I have seen many people outside of education talk about students learning to be “entitled” within a school, but I believe that creating environments to ensure students have every opportunity to be successful is no more “entitled” than an employer doing things to put their employees in the best situations to be successful.nbsp;
