Founder of many global projects Five Safe Fingers, Kindness Everyday, Stem, SGDs in actions, Nam Ngo Thanh is now a manager of the technology academy department in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He has authored multiple articles and has been nationally and internationally recognized for the implementation of creativity and the integration of technology into his teaching. In 2015, he was presented with the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Award, and in the same year, he represented Vietnam at the Microsoft Global Forum. He is a Microsoft Master Trainer, Skype Master Teacher, and Microsoft Learning Consultant. He works passionately to develop creative approaches to delivering quality education to his students in ways that inspire them to learn. He is the winner of Asia Educator of the year 2017, 2018 Global Innovation Collaboration Award, Digital Citizenship Champion, Leader for Change award, Best Teacher of The Year award, BETT Asia 2019 award finalist, Oustanding in Education award and Global Teacher Award winner.
The life skills education in schools (especially for elementary students) is extremely important. It not only helps children to be confident in communication and equips them with life skills, but also helps them to be smart, adaptable, behave better, and easily integrate with the community in a more positive way.
The concept that teaching life skills to elementary students are too early and unnecessary is a big mistake. Because right from the moment of birth, children have been taught to speak, greet, and communicate with the elderly and others around them. These are important communication skills that must be taught early in life. Your child must learn how to communicate not only with family members but also with teachers, friends, people around.
The fact that some parents and teachers are too focused on their children’s academic achievement and overlook the issue of life skills education is a huge mistake. It is very important to educate life skills for preschool-aged children. Facts show that nowadays most primary school students live in modern, well-material life but are extremely weak in basic skills such as behavior and communication. Grade 2 and Grade 3 children still need to rely on their parents for brushing their teeth every morning. In addition, the lack of life skills will make children timid and difficult to communicate, gradually creating feelings of inferiority and becoming taciturn, greatly affecting the child’s personality and future.
In addition to going to school to learn numbers and words, this is the stage when children need to practice necessary life skills that will help develop the child physically, teach them how to think and differentiate between right and wrong and create self-awareness. Life skills also improve a child’s social skills like communication, learning, and working with friends and teachers. Therefore, teaching life skills for students as soon as possible is extremely important as it not only provides the orientation for them to live but also affects their development and future.
There are certain life skills that can be taught from an early age, which will help your child to quickly integrate into the surrounding life, becoming sociable. In particular, the baby will possess the skills to face the dangers, the unexpected but not known before. If when problems occur, children often do not have the experience and knowledge to handle these challenges and will be confused and do wrong things, affecting children’s habits and thoughts later. Therefore, teaching life skills for elementary school students, helps them to have early awareness and right and positive thinking, guiding them towards good and healthy standards for themselves, and for the society.
In order for children to develop comprehensively from physical to mental and to be aware of the world around them, parents and teachers need to understand the importance of life skills. Children should participate in extracurricular activities inside and outside the school. Children must be free to explore, develop imagination and creativity. Therefore, it is necessary to have a combination of educational modules with inputs from the school and family that includes an ample amount of patience and directional, strategic, and methodical teaching.
After the family, a teacher will be the one who most influences a child. Therefore, parents and teachers need to keep in close contact to know what the child needs and monitor how their thought process changes, thereby working together to find appropriate ways to educate their life skills and help the child improve every day.
Life skills for children in many schools are still lacking and weak, so parents and teachers need to work towards this. Design lessons that are close to reality and are suitable for age groups. Let your children know how to behave when there are unexpected cases so that they can react and handle the situation in the best way, forming good habits and good personalities.
The education of life skills for children is extremely necessary and important as it will greatly affect the personality of the child as they grow up. Therefore, parents need to make greater efforts to equip children with the basic life skills necessary for them to be more confident and more active.