{"id":15082,"date":"2015-04-01T14:27:40","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T18:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15082"},"modified":"2015-04-01T14:27:40","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T18:27:40","slug":"from-soft-skills-to-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15082","title":{"rendered":"from soft skills to agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m very pleased to see a blog post<\/a> by\u00a0Andy Calkins,\u00a0Deputy Director of the Next Generation Learning Challenge, entitled “It\u2019s Time to Trash the Terms ‘N\"\"on-Cogs’ and ‘Soft Skills.'”<\/p>\n

Partly in response to the hegemony of standardized testing, some organizations and individuals have been pushing for “non-cognitive” or “soft” skills (e.g., collaboration, grit, participation) as important measures and goals\u00a0of education. Theirs\u00a0is a valid\u00a0goal, but\u00a0I agree with Calkins’ critique of the terminology.\u00a0The kinds of skills that have been named “non-cognitive”\u00a0actually require advanced cognition; the\u00a0skills that have been labeled “soft” are, in every sense, quite hard.<\/p>\n

But it’s not his\u00a0critique of terminology that\u00a0makes me\u00a0recommend\u00a0Calkins’ post. Rather, it’s the alternative master term that he recommends\u00a0to replace “non-cog” and “soft.” Calkins\u00a0chooses “agency,” which is indeed an apt word\u00a0for the\u00a0individual student outcomes that have been overlooked in the era of narrow assessments. Agency comprises an individual’s\u00a0ability and motivation to interpret and change the world. But\u00a0it is not an only individual matter. Agency\u00a0has to be\u00a0political (in the broadest sense), because individuals\u00a0are truly effective as agents when they work together.<\/p>\n

Thus we can say that citizens<\/em> have agency; and people who exhibit\u00a0agency in public contexts are\u00a0citizens. Doris Sommers, who visited Tisch College earlier this week, would argue<\/a> that citizenship is “cultural agency”: intentionally shaping the common world together. And Harry Boyte and Blase Scarnati write<\/a>, “Agency can be understood as a form of empowerment that has conscious political dimensions, or as effective and intentional action that is conducted in diverse and open settings in order to shape the world around us.”<\/p>\n

In We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For<\/a>\u00a0(pp. 27-8), I write:<\/p>\n

A master question for social theory during the twentieth century was structure versus agency: whether people\u2019s voluntary choices made any difference in politics, or whether underlying \u201cstructures\u201d determined everything. This question divided, for example, French existentialists (who preached the value of intentional political acts) from French structuralists (who thought that political events, including major elections and revolutions, were superficial perturbations on the permanent structures below).\u00a0But the question for the twenty-first century should be different: not how much impact agency has, but how that impact can be expanded. The reason to expand it is not that agency is intrinsically good. Hitler was an effective political agent. Rather, deliberate and effective human action is one necessary condition of a worthwhile human life. If there is no agency, life can have no point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the context of education, “agency” moves us from a purely individualistic framework to a recognition of collaboration, social capital, networks, public discourse,\u00a0and other outcomes for groups\u00a0and communities.<\/p>\n

This argument is important coming from the\u00a0Next Generation Learning Challenge, which is influential, hard-nosed about measures and methods, and involved with enhancing students’\u00a0success as currently measured. (For full disclosure,\u00a0the NGLC funded us for a randomized experimental<\/a>\u00a0test\u00a0of\u00a0iCivics’ Drafting Board module, which we found to be effective.)\u00a0It would be easy and unremarkable for me–a civics and democracy guy–to endorse agency. For the NGLC to choose it as a master term is much more valuable.<\/p>\n

See also: “from the achievement gap to empowerment<\/a>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m very pleased to see a blog post by\u00a0Andy Calkins,\u00a0Deputy Director of the Next Generation Learning Challenge, entitled “It\u2019s Time to Trash the Terms ‘Non-Cogs’ and ‘Soft Skills.’” Partly in response to the hegemony of standardized testing, some organizations and individuals have been pushing for “non-cognitive” or “soft” skills (e.g., collaboration, grit, participation) as important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-theory","category-education-policy","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15082"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15086,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15082\/revisions\/15086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}