Education - What Should People Be Learning?

When you were in high school, did you ever wonder why you had to learn some of that stuff? For example, when I was young I took quite a few math courses and learned a lot about calculus. I got my A in every course; but after the final class attendance, I never used any of these skills again. Not once. I have forgotten every bit of it since.

This is not to say that high school and college education is worthless. We knew why we were taking all those courses - to prepare us for our careers.

But it turns out that most of what we needed to know, they failed to teach us. We had to learn it the hard way - on the job.

Here are the five main areas of competence that can make you effective in your career:

• Physical strength - some careers require this
• Personal strength - behavior patterns for dealing with adversity and challenges
• General education - high school, college
• People skills - how to interact with people effectively
• Business know-how - knowledge and skills related to a particular industry

You spent an awful lot of money and time developing yourself with general education. But which area of ability do you think is the most important to your success?

If you want to know my opinion, check out this blog post...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)