SCANS

Today, the demands, on business and workers are different. Firms must meet new world class standards and so must workers. Employers seek adaptability and ability to learn and work in teams. Our young people leave school without the knowledge of foundation required to find and hold a good job. Unless all of us work together to turn this situation around our nation will pay a very high price.

-What Work Requires of Schools, SCANS, Washington, D.C., July 1991.

What is SCANS? I know what your first thought was - Some Coconuts Are Not Sweet, right? Well, that's not right; the SCANS acronym stands for the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. The commission is set forth by the United States Department of Labor. The goal of the commission is to establish the skills students and children need to learn in order to be valuable, productive, successful members of the work force.

The purpose of SCANS is to outline the specific skills (five competencies and three-part foundations) that will help students become the best worker and ultimately the best citizen they can be. “The Commission's fundamental purpose is to encourage a high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage employment.”

The SCANS foundations are to provide students and children with fundamental Basic Skills, Thinking Skills and Personal Qualities. The Basic Skills section ensures that students are able to read, write, perform arithmetic and mathematical operations as well as listen and speak effectively. The Thinking Skills helps students and workers put knowledge to work by learning how to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, visualize, and know how to learn and reason. The Personal Qualities help students and future workers to become dedicated and trustworthy employees. The Personal Qualities area helps students to display responsibility, have self-esteem, be sociable, employ self-management, and have integrity and be honest.

The SCANS competencies are set forth in order to help students learn how to identify, organize, plan, and allocate resources as well as to develop strong interpersonal skills which will allow the student to work well with others in the work setting. The competencies also cover the acquisition, evaluation, interpretation and use of information. Students also learn to understand complex inter-relationships (understands, improves or designs systems as well as monitoring and correcting performance). Lastly, the student will learn to work with a variety of technologies and be able to select technology, apply technology to a specific task, as well as troubleshoot and maintain that equipment.

After looking at all the different headings, sub-headings and definitions, I realized that implementing the SCANS competencies and foundations is not as hard as it seems. Actually, this can be made into a very fun, informative, meaningful and lasting experience for both the teacher(s) and students. Wanting to see how this could actually work in a real classroom/school (combined with being completely bored at work), I completed a lesson which covers all the competencies and foundations. If it fits in with the rest of the website, I'll include it there (See the link on the left, Iachetta Bros.) but if not, I'll come back and post it here as I think it could be useful for anyone - whether teaching in an urban, suburban, or rural district. In brief, the lesson would involve junior and senior art classes who will join together to help create their own gallery exhibit where the students will sell their own original artworks to raise money for new art supplies and equipment. The students will have four months to create artwork, coordinate, and set up the gallery exhibit which will take place in the school. The students will be working for half the year, but will be building up towards the final exhibition. While working up to that point, the students will (hopefully) acquire the skills they need in order to perform well in the work force. They will be able to manage their time, manage money, learn to use and manage different materials and facilities; and develop strong interpersonal skills which are vital to the work environment. Students will also learn how to acquire, evaluate, organize, maintain, and interpret information. Basic skills such as reading, writing, artithmetic will be improved, along with listening and speaking skills. Creative thinking, decision making, and problem solving will be some of the other vital skills students will learn as they make this four month journey. During all of this, students will develop specific personal qualities including but not limited to, self-esteem, taking responsibility, learning self-management and showing integrity and honesty.

This all sounds good as I am writing it, but I wonder if anyone would actually go for it? I mean, a four month project - seems a little absurd, no? How would one go about getting permission for this type of curriculum plan? I just chose an art related project because it is something in which I am interested. As we went around Newark last week, I noticed many vacant lots nearby. I could see a teacher making a lesson where the students transformed one of these old lots or maybe any area on school grounds which is not being used, and make the area into a garden. They will need to use knowledge from, probably all of the different content areas. If not all, then most. But when the students create the garden, their goal is to grow crops which can be sold to the public. The proceeds would go towards (like my art example) buying some new items for the school, or for some local charity, or whatever (I feel it should be something that gives back to the community).

I have more to say on this, but I'll return...I've endured about three brown-outs so far, and I'm kind of losing my train of thought. In the mean-time, feel free to comment...