News Providence schools win $3-million grant to teach ‘soft’ skills crucial to lifelong learning

PROVIDENCE — The latest buzz in public education revolves around teaching students the “soft” skills they need to be successful in school and beyond.

Using a program called “Mind in the Making,” children will be taught the “seven life skills every child needs to be successful.” Those skills include focus and self-control, critical thinking, taking on challenges and communicating.

Educators said this approach targets how a child learns rather than what he learns. It looks at the social and emotional behaviors necessary for early learning: the ability to sit quietly, to pay attention, to share, to express empathy.

“This grows out of the latest brain research,” said Leslie Gell, director of Ready to Learn Providence, an early- learning initiative that is part of The Providence Plan. “It shows that the early years are very important.”

The Providence schools and Ready to Learn Providence were one of 25 contenders to receive a $3-million innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Providence was chosen from among 600 original proposals.

The four-year grant will be used to train faculty, staff and parents at each of the district’s 21 elementary schools.

The seven life skills were developed by author Ellen Galinsky, cofounder of the Families and Work Institute, a nonpartisan think tank funded in part by the Kellogg Foundation. After reviewing the latest brain research, Galinksy concluded that “executive function” skills such as critical thinking and taking on challenges are essential for children to become successful in the classroom.

According to Gell, these soft skills provide the foundation for the acquisition of academic skills.

“You can’t learn,” she said at Tuesday’s news conference, “unless you can focus.”

A number of educators contend that these skills are more important at the beginning of a child’s formal education than a child’s knowledge of letters and numbers.

Providence hopes to enroll parents in the eight-week Mind in the Making class when they register their children for kindergarten. The Providence school district’s registration office will be the conduit for the program. The district has recently outfitted the center to make it more welcoming to families, adding books, puzzles and art materials.

“By reaching them eight months before their children enter kindergarten,” Gell said, “it’s a great opportunity to tell them about some of the ways they can prepare their children for school.”

The class will be offered in both English and Spanish.

A host of dignitaries attended Tuesday’s news conference at the Young-Woods Elementary School, including U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, Governor Chafee, School Supt. Susan Lusi and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, who is running for governor.

Reed said the classes give “parents and teachers a common language as they focus on the social, emotional and academic development of children in these early critical years.”

He said this effort is related to a $290-million initiative, the Family Engagement in Education Act, a bill he authored, to help schools build stronger relationships with families.

Chafee said, “At a time when the state’s education system is focused on closing the skills gap, [Mind in the Making] is a key partnership in this vital effort.”

Taveras said the latest initiative is part of a “cradle-to-grave” continuum of programs to empower families to “make informed decisions about how to develop lifelong learners and support students in their earliest years.”

Unlike many family-engagement programs, Mind in the Making will create opportunities for parents and school professionals to learn together. Ready to Learn hopes to reach 2,580 families, 240 teachers and 160 school personnel over the next four years, which will foster a discussion among many of the adults in a child’s life.

Lusi said the program shows that the schools “cannot do this alone.”

“We know that schools only engage students for 32 hours a week,” she said. “That leaves 7,500 hours a year that children are not in school. We need to work with the whole child and the whole family.”