Despite all the emphasis in the news about the need for computer software and programming skills, the most important qualities employers seek are basic teamwork, problem-solving and the ability to plan and prioritize.

Here are the 10 skills employers say they seek, in order of importance:

• 1. Ability to work in a team
• 2. Ability to make decisions and solve problems
• 3. Ability to plan, organize and prioritize work
• 4. Ability to communicate verbally with people inside and outside an organization
• 5. Ability to obtain and process information
• 6. Ability to analyze quantitative data
• 7. Technical knowledge related to the job
• 8. Proficiency with computer software programs
• 9. Ability to create and/or edit written reports
• 10. Ability to sell and influence others

The good news for grads: No matter what you have studied in school, whether anthropology or French or computer science, you will have had to learn the top five skills on the list. The trick is to demonstrate that you have those skills through your cover letter, résumé and interview. Think about class projects where you have been a team member or leader and jobs where you have had to plan and prioritize. Describe those skills specifically in your résumé and cover letter.

via The 10 Skills Employers Most Want In 20-Something Employees – Forbes.

renewing the Wanderjahre

The original Tour de France had nothing to do with bicycles: it was a medieval guild system which still has a residual existence today: it directed young craftsmen-in-training to travel from place to place in France, practicing their trade and learning the different ways it was done in different parts of the country. The same practice in Germany is called the Wanderjahre. You would think that this is where the English word “journeyman” comes from, but that’s probably not the case.

The proposal I’m about to make runs against the grain of modern and American notions of freedom and independence, but for that very reason, among others, I’m going to make it: I think this practice should be brought back, reinvigorated, and extended to a wide range of professions. In place of the current residency model, which I suppose is the closest thing any American profession has to a Wanderjahre, we should ask our newly-minted physicians to spend a year working in a series of widely different situations: a hospital in inner-city Detroit, a tiny clinic in rural Mississippi, a gleaming health center in the suburbs of San Diego.

Similarly, lawyers should have to spend a few months in a public defender’s office in Chicago, followed by a few more in a K Street lobbying firm in D.C. Academics who’ve just received their Ph.D. should spend a semester teaching at a community college, followed by one at a private university. Super-smart programmers from Stanford would get to pursue their own VC-funded startup — but only after they had spent some time writing code for J. C. Penney’s website and the payroll system of a bank in Charlotte.

In short, the guild system needs renewal and expansion. If it’s handled well, some people will experience a calling to work they never would have thought they could stand — until they were forced to do it. Perhaps some rough patches in uncomfortable situations will make them more thankful for the permanent positions they end up taking; and in any case will give many of them more empathy for their colleagues who spend large chunks (or the whole) of their careers in those “uncomfortable situations.”

via Text Patterns.

Regard for students’ well-being is evident in more subtle ways, as well. Since 1985, students have not been tracked (or grouped by ability) until the tenth grade. Furthermore, since 1991, authorities have rejected the practice of holding back underachievers, concluding that the consequences of grade repetition were too stigmatizing to be effective and that students would be better off being tutored by learning specialists in areas of academic weakness.

The Finnish business community and conservative members of the country’s parliament criticized the end of tracking as a recipe for mass mediocrity — but they went silent following the publication of the 2000 PISA results. “PISA was a lucky gift for Finnish educators,” said Kari Louhivuori, the principal of the Kirkkojärvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, who began his career as a teacher in 1974. “We were under attack from traditional forces and needed outside validation of our new way.” (Some testing is thus ultimately necessary, Louhivuori conceded, if only to prove that regular testing is not.) What’s more, there is now strong proof of the economic benefits of the Finnish educational reformation, particularly in the country’s high-tech sector, which is distinguished by Nokia in telecommunications, Orion in medical diagnostics and pharmaceuticals, Polar in heart-rate monitors, Vaisala in meteorological measurement, and VTI in accelerometers. Flanking highways out of Helsinki are research centers for these companies, as well as ones for Ericsson, IBM, and SAP.

The New Republic: The U.S. Could Learn From Finland : NPR.

The New Republic: The U.S. Could Learn From Finland : NPR.

In comparison to the United States and many other industrialized nations, the Finns have implemented a radically different model of educational reform — based on a balanced curriculum and professionalization, not testing. Not only do Finnish educational authorities provide students with far more recess than their U.S. counterparts — 75 minutes a day in Finnish elementary schools versus an average of 27 minutes in the U.S. — but they also mandate lots of arts and crafts, more learning by doing, rigorous standards for teacher certification, higher teacher pay, and attractive working conditions. This is a far cry from the U.S. concentration on testing in reading and math since the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, which has led school districts across the country, according to a survey by the Center on Education Policy, to significantly narrow their curricula. And the Finns’ efforts are paying off: In December, the results from the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam in reading, math, and science given every three years since 2000 to approximately 5,000 15-year-olds in nations around the world, revealed that, for the fourth consecutive time, Finnish students posted stellar scores. The United States, meanwhile, lagged in the middle of the pack.

Q2 5th Grade Daily Schedule