Recommended Listening – “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie
I want you to imagine something for a second. You’re standing in front of your opponent on the basketball court. They have the ball. They’re dribbling, looking you dead in the eye. They make one quick move and your immediate reaction is to….fall.
Before there was Uncle Drew there was AND1. AND1 was one of the most popular brands for suburbanites growing up in the ’90s who loved basketball. They had a wealth of catchy phrases displayed on T-shirts and had a ridiculous mixtape tour that travelled throughout the US displaying a brand of basketball never seen before. The players were flashy, confident, and could pull off unthinkable moves. They were artists with the basketball and the canvas was the court. The underlying piece of it all was they has skills. Most of the time, the people who wore the shirts (like me) often didn’t have those skills but deeply wanted them.
One of my favorite shirts said, “I put the ill in skills.”
I just studied for the test…
A student walked up to me the other day showcasing a test in hand with an A on it. They said, “Mr. Berngen can you believe it? I got an A.” I had two immediate responses, one why did they have a paper test in their hand (come on people, we’re in the digital age) and two, a question…
I smiled at the student, I said, “That’s great! What skills did you learn?”
The student remarked back, “I don’t know, I just studied for the test.”
I asked to see the paper and discovered it was a geometry test. “Surely, you learned some sort of skill or how to apply this?”
“Nope, just memorized the formulas.”
This made me sad.
Yea…about that “A.”
The education machine, in some unfortunate circumstances, has taught us an overemphasis on A’s and forgotten about the skills. I mean, colleges give away money for grades, so how could you not be incentivized to get that “A?”
I want to tell you something, employers care about skills more than they do A’s. Shocker. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that your A is important. As I mentioned, A’s are still worth money for colleges. You can’t see it right now but I’m actually hanging your Aced paper on my virtual fridge.
However, I want you, as the student, to begin thinking about taking ownership of your education. Now, it can be tough to generate buy-in when some of the topics taught in high school/college education may not be applicable in the broader scheme of things. For instance, you may be taking a course that you have no interest in, but concepts from the course may apply later on. We have to find the relevance.
Is it relevant?
You may be one of those kids who says, I dislike math (in reality, you may say hate, but I prefer dislike). What you don’t understand is that math is everywhere you go. “But I have a calculator” you may rebuttal, but the bigger piece here is sure, you may have the calculator, but are you able to utilize it to accomplish what you want to do? Now, I am in a profession whose level of math is only utilized in the capacity of creating a budget. Not exactly high level math. However, in my spare time, I do a ton of woodworking. Woodworking involves a variety of angles, measurements, and geometry. If I don’t understand those sophomore level geometry skills, I have functionally learned how to build an unintentional collapsible table. Yikes.
The magic of skills…
Something magical happens when we begin to really search for the skills in the content we are learning. We practice with the intention of learning. It no longer becomes I’m studying to get the A, it becomes I’m practicing to get the skill. We not only begin to teach ourselves those skills through repetition and practice, but we unlock a brand new special power. Web-slinging? Sorry Spider-Man, not exactly the special power I’m talking about. The special power is actually a mindset. A mindset that allows us to go out and learn new skills. Skills that may be applicable the exact job that you want.
Skills in hidden places…
I had an English teacher in high school who used to play songs by the Doors (trust me, regardless of your age, you’ve heard them). Ironically enough, we used to listen to “This is the End” on repeat until the entire class wanted it to be the end.
After each song, he asked us to explain what we heard. The simplistic answer was “He was talking about the end.” “The end of what?” the teacher would question the greater class. We would then have to look for deeper meaning in the song. In that moment, I thought, How will I ever apply this? Where is the relevance?
He wasn’t teaching us to listen to the Doors. He was teaching us to look for deeper poetic meaning in the things that we hear. A skill in creativity that has helped make me a well-rounded human being and develop a fine appreciation for music. And to his credit… it is a skill that I take with me everywhere I go.
Certainly if I can find the applicableness of listening to the Doors, you can find relevance in your content.
So the next time you are studying, here is some advice:
- Relate the skill to you. Push yourself beyond the classroom to think about how the skill may relate to you in your life outside of school. Think…How does this skill relate to you? Once you find the relevance, you will begin to work on the learning.
- Own your learning. Your education does not stop and start with the school walls. It extends well beyond you. Find skills that you want to learn and begin working towards them. It could start in the form of a project like: “I want to build________.” In the process of building __________, you can build invaluable skills. Great entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak didn’t wait for school to teach them what they wanted to learn.
- Keep track of your skills. Ask yourself, “Am I learning a skill that’s transferable to a resume?” Some skills may not be, but powering through pages upon pages of history reading has the power to potentially boost your reading comprehension, a skill that never goes away.
After you do all this, and begin to foster a mindset focused on the development of skills…. Only then, will you too begin to put the ill in skills.
Thanks for reading!
Eric Berngen 