Soft skills are non-technical skills. Generally, soft skills involve working with and dealing with people. It is safe to assume that everybody needs soft skills to a certain degree. Teachers in particular need soft skills as they are constantly interacting with people. In this post, we will look at the following softy skills that teachers need to develop to support their students

• Communication
•  Leadership
•  Collaboration
•  Self-awareness
•  Empathy
•  Emotional intelligence

Communication

Communication is focused on saying what you mean and saying it clearly. How to do this is tricky. When communicating it is important to keep in mind your audience. The way a teacher talks to kindergartners is different from high school students. It is also important to have students repeat what you said back to them. Doing so will allow you to hear what they have learned or not learned. This information sets you up for success.

It takes time to learn how to communicate with students and with people in general. However, given the need to constantly spend time with kids as a teacher, it should not take long for communication skills to improve.

Leadership

Leadership is the ability to influence others. Often, this is associated with achieving a goal. As a teacher, it is critical to have a goal and a way to help a student to achieve excellence and this involves leadership.

Decisiveness and charisma are critical components of leadership. A teacher must know what they want and how they will get there. Often teachers have one or the other. What this means is that a teacher may know what they want but cannot inspire students or they don’t know what they want but are highly motivating. Falling into either extreme is disruptive for the classroom.

Collaboration

Collaboration is the ability to work with others. Teachers are often viewed as people who work alone. There is the common stereotype of the teacher being the only adult in a classroom and also spending time alone grading assignments and preparing lesson plans.

However, teaching involves a great deal of collaboration. Even in the classroom teachers have to work together with students. Children are people too and nobody wants to work with or be under a person who is difficult to get along with. Therefore, even though a teacher may have authority over students it is still easier for all parties involved if the teacher has some basic ability in working with others.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of one’s internal thoughts and external actions. People frequently make mistakes when interacting with others and are surprised that their actions had a negative influence on them. In addition, it is also common for people to experience angst when their thoughts and actions are not in agreement. One example would be the ting of guilt many experience when they lie or act hypocritically.

Teachers, as individuals who interact with people, need to have self-awareness. It is tempting to blame the students every time there is a problem in the classroom. However, self-aware teachers will always look at themselves first to see if that is where the problem is.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to see and understand something from another person’s perspective. Being able to understand another person’s perspective, especially when it disagrees with yours, is a rare skill to find today. Often today, people like to gather with people who think the same way they do.

Teachers have to learn to be empathetic because they will be frequently challenged by students who do not agree about having to work and study in class. When disruptive behavior takes place it can make it even harder for the teacher to try and understand the perspective of the student.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the skill of controlling one’s own emotions and being aware of the emotions of others. It’s difficult for most people to control their emotions. If someone can stay in control of themselves they could be accused of being heartless and cruel.

Teachers need to have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Students are frequently looking for an emotional response from a teacher when they are being disruptive. If a teacher can maintain control of themselves it sends a strong message about who is in charge in a classroom. However, teachers must also be aware of the emotions of their students so that again they can understand them when trying to support them.

Conclusion

A careful reading of this post will show that these skills are overlapping in nature. For example, self-awareness is needed to be empathetic and both of the skills need emotional intelligence. Therefore, soft skills often cannot be broken down into isolated skills but are rather a set of inter-related skills that work together to help students