I recently read an article in the Washington Post about hiring practices at Google. Google did a study on what qualities, values, and skills are the best to look for in the tech industry.
For years, just as most tech companies do, google hired top-notch tech people, people who are highly educated and top of their class with STEM, Computer Science, and Engineering Degrees. They fully expected that these skills and education would make the difference and give Google the edge with great hires.
Once Google decided to track hiring, firing, and promotional data, they started to realize they may have been wrong. “Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last.”
They realized that soft skills: “being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas,” are the more important qualities.
Guess what? These soft skills are a major focus of Montessori!
We work with children on their emotional understanding, on how to be a good friend, help and support each other, how to identify their emotions and cope with them, how to repeat works, make mistakes, and try again, how to be independent but also a good collaborator, how to teach others who know less than we do and learn from others who know more, how to figure out something that has never been directly taught to them, how to observe and use all modes of learning to take in every bit of information.
Of course academics are important, but the emotional work children will do in a Montessori Environment will directly support them in future careers.
I hope you enjoy the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/20/the-surprising-thing-google-learned-about-its-employees-and-what-it-means-for-todays-students/?utm_term=.3425d4039cd8
