Forget careers. What are your competencies?

In this episode of Monster Under the Bed, we bust the ‘you are what you know’ education myth and discover that, in fact, you are the things you know how to do

In the grim Victorian building where I went to school, we learned everything by rote. It worked out okay for me. But the focus at the school my kids attend doesn’t seem to be on cramming knowledge into their heads, and sometimes I wonder if that’s bad for them.

So I decided to examine the ideas I had about schooling. Maybe the things I thought made for good learning were actually education myths that no longer apply in the digital age. With the help of the education experts at the European Investment Bank, the EU bank, I decided to find out.

In this episode you’ll find out:

·        What are competencies? Competencies are the things you know how to do, rather than the things you know (like public speaking or putting together a presentation)

·        That kids are now focused on learning vs memorization, or to put it another way understanding vs memorizing. You could say it means learning life skills vs facts.

·        that when you have to change career (and even sometimes when you don’t) you need upskilling. What is upskilling? Upskilling is often retraining to bring you skills and competencies in line with what employers need in a marketplace that’s increasingly digital

·        that schools are preparing kids for the changes digitalisation is making to old ideas about careers

·        how an EU programme makes education fairer and more socially inclusive.

At the European Investment Bank Group, the EU bank, we have all kinds of experts, just like the education specialists in this episode. They can challenge our assumptions, notions and prejudices about anything from climate to cybercrime and from healthcare to urbanisation.

We started the Monster Under the Bed podcast to examine these myths. In each episode of the podcast, we fight one imaginary monster under the bed and win the battle for a more sensible way of doing things.

So that you don’t miss any episodes, subscribe to Monster Under the Bed on your phone’s podcast app. You can do it in iTunes, Acast and many other podcast platforms as well.

Let us know if you can think of a monster we should expose on future episodes. Get in touch on Twitter @AllarTankler. If you’ve got something to say about education in particular, let me know @EIBMatt.

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