The Power of Durable Skills – Preparing Students for What Matters Most
- Michael Langevin, Ph.D.
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
By the time today’s kindergarteners graduate in 2037, they’ll enter a workforce shaped by artificial intelligence, automation, and roles we haven’t yet imagined. In this rapidly evolving landscape, one thing remains constant: the lasting value of human-centered skills.
Communication. Collaboration. Work Ethic. These aren’t just desirable qualities. They are the abilities that help people adapt, solve problems, and work well with others. America Succeeds calls them durable skills: competencies that continue to matter in every career, across every industry, and through every generation of work.
A closer look at more than 82 million job postings from 2019 to 2020 tells the story clearly. According to America Succeeds, seven of the ten most in-demand skills fall into the durable skills category (2021). Employers are searching for more than technical know-how. They’re prioritizing candidates who can communicate clearly, adjust to change, and thrive in team environments.
That leaves educators and policymakers with a clear challenge. If we want students to succeed in a world that’s constantly changing, we need to build systems that teach and reinforce these skills. And we need to start now.
Defining Durable Skills: More Than a Soft Skill Set
For years, we’ve referred to them as “soft skills.” But let’s be honest. That label doesn’t do them justice. There’s nothing soft about showing up on time, communicating clearly, collaborating across differences, or staying focused when things get hard. These are durable skills. They stay with individuals long after graduation and continue to apply across careers, industries, and life stages. Often, they’re what distinguish those who struggle from those who thrive, whether in the workplace, in relationships, or within their communities.
We often talk about durable skills in K–12 settings. Communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and work ethic show up in nearly every conversation about what students need. They’re easy to value in theory, yet much harder to prioritize in daily practice. That’s part of the challenge. Unlike academic standards or test benchmarks, durable skills don’t always appear in pacing guides or state assessments. Supporting them requires a different kind of planning and purpose.
Recognition for these skills is beginning to grow. Indiana’s redesigned diploma structure now includes the Honors Enrollment, Honors Employment, and Honors Enlistment Seals. Each one requires students to show growth in communication, collaboration, and work ethic. That shift sends a clear message. Schools are beginning to reward more than what students know. They’re also recognizing how students contribute, connect, and engage with others.
Still, awareness isn’t enough. If we want durable skills to take hold in our schools, we must define them clearly and build them intentionally into the learning experience. That means embedding them into the structure of school itself. It’s not enough to list them in a mission statement. They must be reflected in how we teach, assess, and design every day.
The Implementation Challenge: Embedded Practice or One More Thing?
Educators today are carrying a lot. With new initiatives, updated frameworks, and well-intentioned reforms arriving constantly, even widely supported ideas like durable skills can feel hard to implement. The challenge isn’t agreement. It’s execution. And without the right approach, durable skills often end up in the “one more thing” category. They become an extra layer, disconnected from the realities of daily instruction.
At first glance, many schools might say they’re already teaching these skills. In some ways, that’s true. Group projects, class discussions, lab reports, and countless informal moments invite students to collaborate, communicate, and persevere. But here’s the difference. When we don’t name these skills, dedicate time to them, or embed them in our systems, they risk fading into the background.
Supporting durable skills takes the same kind of planning, clarity, and repetition we give academic content. These competencies need more than a bulletin board or a character trait of the month. Without intention, they remain invisible.
A practical entry point is to focus on two durable skills each month at the district level. When every teacher, across subjects and grade levels, engages students in conversations and activities tied to those skills, they begin to take root. That consistency builds shared language. It strengthens buy-in. It allows students to see, hear, and practice the same competencies from different angles, again and again.
And this isn’t about piling more onto educators. It’s about naming what’s already happening, aligning it with purpose, and making it easier to reinforce what teachers already value.
What It Looks Like: Building with Intention
When it comes to durable skills, clarity matters. It's not enough to say we value communication, collaboration, and work ethic. We need to show what those traits look like at different points in a student’s development.
That’s why EES Innovation partners with districts to build grade-banded proficiency scales. These resources help define how skills progress from kindergarten through 12th grade. Students grow in how they express ideas, contribute to teams, and take responsibility for their work. But these abilities don’t appear all at once. A kindergartener who communicates clearly looks very different from a tenth grader preparing for a job interview. Our expectations should reflect that. Grade-band progressions (K–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–10, & 11–12) give schools a framework to measure and support that growth over time.
Some districts are taking this further. They’re using the scales to inform standards-based report cards and are placing durable skills right alongside academic indicators. That sends a clear message. These skills are not extras. They’re essential. And what we measure often shapes what we prioritize.
Making It Stick: Prioritizing Durable Skills in K–8
Too often, the focus on durable skills begins in high school. That’s when readiness seals are awarded, internships are pursued, and postsecondary pathways start to take shape. But waiting until then means missing a critical window. The habits that drive communication, collaboration, and work ethic begin much earlier. They are shaped through classroom routines, peer interactions, and the everyday problem-solving of elementary and middle school.
When we prioritize durable skills in the K–8 years, we do more than prepare students for later choices. We give them the language to express their strengths, the mindset to keep growing, and the foundation they’ll need long before they’re asked to choose a path.
Some schools are taking this a step further by building recognition systems that highlight durable skills in action. In one district, for example, a fifth-grade student who demonstrates perseverance during a group project might earn a micro-credential in Work Ethic. That recognition isn’t just about praise. It’s tied to specific evidence that shows the student is meeting the expectations outlined in the proficiency scales for their grade band. In the process, they’re building identity and learning that how they work, listen, and lead matters just as much as what they know.
This is what intentionality looks like. Not a big program. Not a one-time assembly. Just consistent, shared practices that make durable skills visible, meaningful, and fully woven into how each classroom works every day.
What’s at Stake: Building a System That Reflects What We Say We Value
It’s one thing to say that durable skills are important. It’s another to build a system that brings those values to life in daily practice.
Durable skills give leaders a powerful opportunity to align belief with design. Most districts have mission statements that highlight the whole child, future readiness, or success beyond graduation. But mission statements alone aren’t enough. To reflect those values, we need to ask harder questions. Are these human capacities showing up in how we assess, grade, recognize achievement, and use instructional time?
When fully embraced, durable skills can function as a bridge. They connect academic goals with social-emotional learning, workforce expectations, and student identity. More than that, they offer shared language and purpose, using terms that make sense in both a kindergarten classroom and a high school internship.
That’s the real measure of progress. Graduation is one outcome. But we also need to ask whether students are leaving school with the skills to lead, adapt, and contribute. And while many teachers already value durable skills, the work becomes sustainable only when the system is designed to support it.
This isn’t just a shift for the classroom. It’s an opportunity for leadership.
What If Durable Skills Were the Priority?
What if durable skills weren’t treated as an add-on? What if they formed the foundation: the core that every other part of school builds around?
Picture a future where students leave school not only knowing what they’ve learned, but also how they collaborate, how they solve problems, and how they contribute to the world around them. Imagine these skills becoming the thread that ties together content, culture, and community. Not an afterthought, but the starting point.
That’s the opportunity in front of us. Durable skills aren’t new, but they’ve never been more necessary. They give us a way to align what we say we value with how we design school. They offer common ground for teachers, families, employers, and communities. And they prepare students to step into the future with confidence, clarity, and purpose.
This is about more than readiness. It’s about relevance. Belonging. Identity. It calls on us to ask better questions, shift what we celebrate, and imagine what school could become when the human side of learning is made just as visible and just as valued as everything else.
So, let’s keep asking the question that has the power to change everything: What if?
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Reference:
America Succeeds. (2021). The High Demand for Durable Skills. https://americasucceeds.org/portfolio/the-high-demand-for-durable-skills