During an online English class with my adult students, employees of Wienerberger, we take various "field trips" into topics that naturally interest us. After we read an article in the Language Hub B1+ textbook on the topic of CHANGE, which compared the work of expert specialists and "superforecasters", an interesting debate developed. In doing so, we came across an article in Forbes magazine, "The Top 10 In-demand Skills fro 2030", which prompted us at Harmony Academy to reflect on the readiness of our schools for this predicted huge change.
My working week this school year is very different from the previous ones, especially because besides online English lessons, I am not only travelling around the EU countries for our international projects and training different target groups on personal and organisational development, but I am also visiting primary, secondary and higher education institutions as well as companies of different sizes in Slovakia, where I meet many new faces interested in the topic of Innovation Learn & Lead. I come across some very interesting findings that both encourage me to keep going and prompt me to self-reflect on what and how I bring to these meetings. After years of practice, a whopping 32 years this year😊, I still feel the need to learn, to sense the changing needs of different generations and to deepen my knowledge, competencies and skills.
We know that mind-set is the foundation of our progress today. It has been so since time immemorial, only today we are more aware, wiser and discerning. At least some of us certainly are. But since we were never purposefully taught to work with our minds, and we took our mental attunement more or less as a natural part of our being, that awakening can hurt at times. Modern teachers teach pupils and students to think, awaken interest in their subject, support, develop and guide their pupils from point A (the beginning of the lesson) to point B (the end of the lesson) in a way that makes the journey rewarding, enjoyable and as beneficial as possible for the pupils and the teachers themselves.
For the purposes of this article, we invited our students to write about how they perceive the online English classes we tailor to their on-going needs. We were delighted when they wrote:
Individual courses are a wonderful example of the "new school" approach, where it's about the symbiosis of form and content. Learning takes place in both language and self-development, making the classes unexpectedly enriching on a multi-level scale. Application Learn & Lead principles elevates the level of learning and the ability to participate in the learning process to a completely different level.
Juraj Kabát, Head of Technical Department, 26 March 2024
I find the lessons enriching. Besides the fact that I learn something new from the world of English every lesson, they are creative lessons and as a bonus there is always some new info included, for example from the world of self-development. Most of the time I don't even know how and 90minutes pass. I haven't had the "how much longer is the lesson going to last" look on my watch yet. I definitely recommend it.
MartinaKaľavská, Program Improvement Specialist
The language courses have been developed to be in line with the latest trends such as remote working, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. At Harmony Academy, we are at the forefront of these innovations, offering greater flexibility in communication methods and the opportunity to connect with teachers from around the world.
Miroslav Cino, Strategic Leader
At Harmony Academy, thanks to Learn & Lead Innovation, we are fully connected to the turbulent evolution of a society that is changing before our eyes. The rate at which change is happening is getting faster and faster and by initiating and submitting development projects in international partnerships at regular intervals, we have the opportunity to directly create, pilot and implement the necessary innovations in our schools, learning centres and companies.
Based on the above article, I offer you in translation those skills that are defined in the article as key for the labour market in 2030. It may seem that 2030 is still a long way off, but if we think about the fact that today's eighth graders will be graduating in 2030, maybe that future is not even that far away. According to Dell, up to 85% of those working today will be doing something different than they are today. Striking at first glance, but who knows?
The top skills that will be required in the marketplace in 2030 are as follows, according to an article in Forbes by Bernard Marr :
- DigitalLiteracy
- Augmented Working
- Sustainable Working
- Critical Thinking and Analysis
- Data Skills (Data Skills)
- Virtual Collaborative Working Platforms
- CreativeThinking
- Emotional Intelligence (Emotional Intelligence)
- Lifelong Learning
- Leadership Sk ills
If you're interested, you might want to think about where you stand. You can choose a scale from 1 (least developed - I have only very basic knowledge) to 10 (most developed - expert) and rate yourself on how you perceive your level of development of the skill today. You can then choose the three key areas that you perceive as most important today and set the level to which you want to develop by 2025, with a view to the desired state in 2030. Once you've worked your way through that, then all that's left to do is define the next action step in relation to those three skills and choose a roadmap.
As an example, here are three skills we are currently working on in our team:
1. Digital Liter acy
We are currently developing new programmes for teachers and tutors in developing this skill. The next one will be launched this summer and its main goal is to train participants to be able to design and program their own digital course using AI. Working with Chat GPT is just the foundation that we use in our work today, and with the help of other applications working with AI, we are expanding our knowledge and skills about new possibilities that make our lives easier.
At the same time, the Harmony Academy and Learn & Lead Innovation office is fully virtual, so we learned how to work with applications such as Hubspot, Canva, Animoto, Office 365, Beenia, Webflow, Mindmeister, Weglot, Hetzner, Stripe, Webhouse, Zoom, Learnworlds and others. As Trainers , we also work with apps such as Kahoot, Socrative, Quizlet, Blooket, Padlet and others.
2. Sustainable Working
I founded the Green Meadow Language School in 2000 and have come a long way since then. I've learned to rise and fall, to count wins and losses, to build and to tear down... I have gained very valuable experience and sharpened my patience, my sense of purpose. I have passed the tests of perseverance, the test of values as well as the ability to lead others towards a common goal. Today, the vision of Innovate Learn & Lead for 2030 is being born, with "fruit trees" and "birds" playing a central role. The tree as the pillar of the teacher's credibility and the bird as the free learner who flies in and out of the tree, which offers him fruit (knowledge), but also stillness, peace, protection from the sun or rain (a sense of security and safety).
The vision that binds us together is the basis of a sustainable business model of a network of experts who subscribe to the Learn & Lead Innovation and do their part to further refine, develop and bring it to you, our clients. The unique business logic of Innovation Learn & Lead brings together different roles that complete the uniqueness of the concept and bring the best quality at an unbeatable price today.
We see the future of our work in continuous learning, co-creating training programmes with our customers, finding common challenges with our customers and solving them together. All this in an international network of experts that has set not only KPIs (key performance indicators) but also BPIs (behavirou performance indicators) and saturates the needs of a learning organization on the path of excellence with the help of the KNOWLO tool.
3. Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman is one of my authors whose works I have been reading and processing for training purposes for a very long time. Model Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competencieswhich he developed with Richard Boyatzis, provides a starting framework for developing emotional intelligence in people who lead others. It doesn't matter if you are a parent, a teacher or a manager, people are the same (beware of developmental psychology, which points out the particularities of different target groups according to the age of the learner) and yet different ( Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is just one of the theories that offers us insight into the uniqueness of human beings).
We address the topic of mental health in our projects in two possible ways.
- English well-being with Jana is based on short podcasts that guide reflection and subsequent written communication with me using an online platform. The aim is to relax, calm down and reflect on yourself in order to improve your life. I speak to you in English, giving you the opportunity to strengthen not only your knowledge of yourself, but also your ability to understand and express your views and thoughts in written English. The course consists of 6 original podcasts, 19 assignments and 1 analysis and a final certificate.
- Theevening dialogues with Jana in Trnava are devoted to various mental health topics. They are hour-long lively discussions with experts in psychology, philosophy and culture and are offered as part of Learning Trnava, the first UNESCO Learning City in Slovakia. The Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Trnava and the Slovak Institute of Logotherapy are the co-organisers of the next topic "Discovering the Meaning of Life". I will welcome there doc. Maria Dědová, PhD, psychologist and psychotherapist, working at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Trnava and doc. Mgr. Jaroslavu Vydrova, PhD., working at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Trnava University of Technology and also at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
If you've managed to read this article to the end, we've managed to keep you interested and we're happy about it. No one today knows exactly what will be required of us in 2030, but we do know one thing for sure, even in 2030 we want to be contributing people at Harmony Academy who will take steps into the unknown for others. As modern teachers, we have a mission to help and develop others for a better and more rewarding life. We are ready to stay on this path and beyond and match ourselves with the challenges that lie ahead. With an open mind and heart.
