Social Skills at Home: A Necessary Ingredient for An Increased Academic Performance

Regina Sol R. Bacallo

Only through improving our knowledge of human behavior will we be able to address the world's biggest issues. Educational leaders, teachers, counselors, and social workers have long maintained that certain students underperform academically because they lack appropriate social skills, which influence their academic abilities. When students who struggled to acquire social skills failed to participate in acceptable conduct, they faced harsher disciplinary repercussions.

Teachers have long recognized the value of social and behavioral abilities, seeing collaboration, self-control, and other social skills as essential to academic and behavioral success. Because the student's social skills are lacking in the new normal setup of education, the student is mentally constrained to wonder about during the instructional period; unable to understand and thus concentrate on the subject matter being taught; unable to formulate proper questions; inability to follow along; unable to (or fearful of) asking a question.

While educational leaders, teachers, counselors, and social workers are focused on the major core subjects-math, reading and language arts, and science-they all agree that the knowledge and understanding gained from these content subjects are critical in developing a whole student and life-long learner. However, concerns of a lack of academic and social skills are unpleasant for both the student and the teacher since the student is sometimes unable to absorb the information and the teacher is uninformed of the student's non-educational problems.

The learning process happens because our learning is linked to a condition, and that condition is the environment. As a result, we learn through our interactions with our surroundings and environment. The student failed to accomplish and have a good educational experience because he or she lacked either social or intellectual study abilities.

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The author is Teacher III at Tarlac West Central Elementary School, West A District, Tarlac Schools City Division, Region III