Since the COVID-19 pandemic, young Americans all across the country are showing a lack of important social skills that the older generations focused a large part of their careers on.
Technology surrounds the world at every corner, but it is not always positive for society. Face-to-face interactions are crucial to the development of social skills, which become a valuable part of an individual’s character when getting hired for a job. Instead of this, young Americans have been forced behind a computer screen and have been stripped of the in person interactions they need
COVID forced schools, businesses and institutions to shut down and do all their work from home or in more isolated settings. Most Americans have already gone through school and had the ability to interact with many other people, but students were put into isolation where their only form of communication was through a phone or computer.
To combat the effects of COVID, the Iowa Department of Education enacted a new school curriculum to start grading students on their social skills through a new Employability Score. The Employability Score would take into account students’ soft skills as opposed to only memorization and application of curriculum.
Some students are aware of this lack of social skills, and senior Hayden Boeh had positive feedback about the new curriculum. “The new employability grade is really beneficial for the students,” said Boeh, “Students clearly lack the ability to be professional in a lot of situations.”
Even though some students may realize how impactful COVID has been on their education and ability to interact with others, not all have the initiative to push themselves to work on these important skills, especially because of their dependence on phones. “It is stemming from COVID,” said teacher Janene Murphy. “I mean we have become so dependent on it [phones], to the point where it’s actually businesses are saying that we [teachers] have to teach these students to stay off their phone.”
“For some I think it’s not going to be a problem,” continued Murphy. “But for others it is going to be a bit of a struggle. But that is why we are in school, right?”
The new curriculum may be hard for some students to work with while others excel, as COVID has affected everyone differently. However, the effects of the pandemic are still very prevalent and a few students don’t represent the whole. The new Iowa law could help assist in reconstructing the social skills of the youth, and young Americans will make their first step towards getting into the working world.
