Learning by competences

Application of life skills

When applying life skills in Health Education you should consider:

• the biological characteristics of a person (age, sex, etc.);

• the social characteristics of a person (culture, social environment etc.);

• the self-efficacy of a person or a group;

• the place of the intervention;

• the type of risk area that the intervention aims to tackle.

The most important factor in choosing to use one technique rather than another, is the type of risk area to be tackled by the intervention. The theoretical premise behind teaching life skills is the ‘social learning theory’ developed by Albert Bandura. According to which, learning is the active assimilation occurring during the transformation and the structuring of the learning experience. The theory is that individuals do not passively absorb environmental influences, but interact with it, and can enhance their self-efficacy by gaining new skills and abilities to tackle and manage different and difficult situations.

Learning can take place either through direct experience, or through indirect experience, observing and modelling actions on those of others who you identify with; or by developing situation-specific skills, such as self-assessment, which reinforces the belief that you are able to behave in a certain way.

Life skills can be grouped into three areas:

• learning to know: cognitive skills needed for decision-making, problem-solving and critical thinking;

• learning to be: personal skills, which allow you to develop the internal locus of control, managing feelings and stress;

• learning to live together: social skills needed for interpersonal communication, negotiation and/or to refuse; empathy, cooperation and group work, giving support.

Life skills in school

School is the best place to learn life skills, for the following reasons:

– the important part it plays in socialization processes;

– the ability to reach practically the entire youth population;

– the use of existing infrastructures, without having to create new or expensive services;

– teachers’ experience and training;

– the high level of credibility of a school for parents and the community;

– the ability to carefully assess the effectiveness of life skills education within learning assessment as a whole.

Life skills are not delivered as an additional ‘package’ to teachers, but as a tool to enhance the learning experience, in as much as they promote students’ psycho-social skills. The benefits of life skills education can be seen in health education:

– promoting students’ self-esteem;

– improving everyday relations between staff and students and between students themselves;

– reducing behavioral problems in class and promoting educational achievement;

– increasing school attendance;

– reducing violent behavior and need for specialist help;

– improving relations between parents and children;

– improving relations between school, family and local communities;

– promoting staff’s health and wellbeing;

– increasing collaboration with local experts;

– developing services to promote health and wellbeing at school.

The WHO considers 6 to 16 to be the ideal age for learning life skills, as any behaviors that could jeopardize health have not yet been consolidated.