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Teaching Life Skills: The Elective Series Continues

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If I told you the elective we’re about to dive into has an “awkward party” unit, would you believe me?

Well, it does, and I can’t wait for you to learn about it and start planning an awkward party lesson of your own. Today on the show, we’re continuing our creative electives series with veteran teacher Lisa Blake, who’s been teaching for 33 years in Northern California. She’s built a life skills elective to give her students confidence in how to learn new skills, not just to teach the skills themselves.

As she empowers them to explore and discover paths to success, she’s not just teaching them to cook, sew, and manage the small talk at an awkward party, she’s teaching them to believe they can tackle an area they know nothing about. And you can do the same for your students, whether it’s through an entire elective like Lisa, or a smaller life skills unit. So let’s dive in and learn how!

You can listen in to this episode below, click here to tune in on any podcast player, or read on for the full post.

The Life Skills Elective – Big Picture

Lisa’s elective is what you might call “off the grid.” She doesn’t have a rigid curriculum or set of bullet-pointed curriculum elements she needs to get through.

Instead, she’s got the creative freedom to consider what would help her students most, and she wants them to have confidence in the world on their own – to know how to operate and make decisions in new situations.

So is the class about threading a needle? Building a menu? Finding the right fork at an important business dinner?

Yes.

Is it also about believing you can figure out how to succeed in an area you’ve never had to deal with before? About making decisions and believing that they are good ones? About building confidence in tackling problems as they come up?

Yes.

My conversation with Lisa reminded me of so much of David Kelley’s profound Ted Talk on self-efficacy and creative confidence. By structuring her course with a focus on building confidence instead of just building skills, Lisa’s life skills lessons have the potential to be life-changing far beyond the scope of their individual subjects.

The Life Skills Elective – Day-to-Day Structure

While approaching subjects like sewing, telling time on an analogue clock, table manners, cooking, and small talk, Lisa uses the classic I do / We do / You do format to structure her lessons.

Lisa introduces or demonstrates the skill, the class digs deeper together with some form of practice or deeper dive into a text, and then students work in the lab or participate in simulated activities to build their skills and confidence.

Most crucially for Lisa, she builds in decision-making to every lesson. Even if it’s just choosing what colors to sew with, students always make a choice and put their own spin onto every skill they practice.

Informational texts come in many shapes and sizes in the elective, and Lisa encourages students to remember that when they learn a new skill, they don’t have to follow a blueprint exactly.

In cooking, for example, they might leave out an ingredient they don’t like (or don’t have), change up a form of vegetable or a spice, etc.

With each skill, they have the chance to take in the information given, make their own decisions, and put their own spin into their own process. It’s a process Lisa hopes they’ll repeat throughout their lives.

So cool, right?

Lisa’s Final Project: The 3 Course Meal

The culminating activity for Lisa’s class is to plan, design, cook, and document the cooking of a meal at home.

The meal must be at a table, include guests, and have at least three courses.

Lisa has students who come into her class who have never handled a knife before, and after this assignment they come in with pictures of themselves creating a whole meal for their grandparents, siblings, parents, etc.

She finds it amazing to see students be able to make all the decisions involved and execute them with pride.

The Awkward Party Unit

I bet you can think of an awkward party or two that you’ve attended! Juggling drinks, shaking hands, answering the “What do you do?” question a dozen times… are your palms sweaty just thinking about it?

Networking, business happy hours, job interviews over meals… Lisa wants to help her students prepare for moments like these.

Enter, the awkward party lessons. She teachers her students table manners so they won’t feel awkward around differently-sized forks, and helps them imagine how to conquer small talk so they won’t feel awkward around small talkers.

Over the years, her students have returned with stories of their awkward party success.

One student had to go to a fancy restaurant for Christmas dinner and he was nervous. He came back excited and proud that he knew which fork to use; he was even able to show other family members where to find the bread plate.

Another of Lisa’s students had to sit at a table with prospective employers and enjoy a meal. She was confident and relaxed enough to answer HR questions as she ate, which got her two interviews.

Over the years, small moments like these have led Lisa to understand that what we might think is small could be a big thing for students. Teaching the invisible skills, and empowering kids with confidence to continue that learning process on their own, can make a real impact in their lives.

Lisa’s Golden Nuggets (Advice for Life Skills Units of your Own)

Lisa’s got three crucial pieces of advice for anyone wanting to dive into their own life skills elective or unit.

First, trust your instincts. No skill is too small – things that we do ordinarily can be taught in an explicit, small-scale way.

Second, ask kids what they want to learn and what they don’t understand. They will help you know what to do.

And third, all text is text. There are so many ways to learn through non-traditional texts. Life skills generally aren’t taught in a book, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t wonderful non-traditional informational text options out there waiting to help you teach your students the skills they want to learn.

Looking for a kickstart? See a Life Skills unit I designed here on TPT (or find it in The Lighthouse under “Flexible Curriculum”)

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