Conscientious Worker was added to the Future Ready Skills in 2014 when community members and business leaders pointed out that the basics of being a good employee were missing from our set of skills. They appreciated the existing skills for their emphasis on abilities that aren’t often addressed in school and are hard to teach on the job. However, they wanted to make sure we also addressed the habits of a good employee--punctuality, work ethic, integrity, flexibility, etc.--somewhere in our Future Ready Skills.
Worth Mentioning
It’s important to distinguish Conscientious Worker from Self-Directed Learner. Many people have the misconception that Self-Directed Learner is about being on task, following directions, managing one’s own time, etc. However, those are really attributes of being a Conscientious Worker. As you’ll learn later in this course, Self-Directed Learner is more about truly directing your own learning--recognizing when you have a gap in knowledge (or a curiosity about something) and knowing how to fill it.
Additionally, we should think about how conscientiousness is different from compliance. Though compliance certainly has a role in some of our norms and procedures in school, what we’re getting at with Conscientious Worker is more sophisticated. Awareness and attention are integral components of being a Conscientious Worker. A conscientious worker sees what needs to be done and draws on his/her skills to complete the work with a high degree of quality, asking for help if necessary along the way, of course. Compliant workers rely on someone telling they what to do and how to do it. At the extreme they take little initiative or ownership of their work. On the other hand, conscientious workers want to do good work and strive to be successful.
Check It Out
Read the description and review the grade-level checklist for this skill at the Future Ready Skill website.
Learn More About It
Read these two articles from the non-education world to deepen your understanding of the traits of conscientious people and why conscientiousness is such a big predictor of success.
6 Signs You Have A Conscientious Personality, According To The Big Five Personality Traits
This Personality Trait Predicts SuccessYour Prompt
Part A: Though the articles weren’t necessarily written with educators in mind, how might you use information or insights you took from the reading to help your students better understand or develop the traits of being a Conscientious Worker?
Part B: What are some ideas you have for when and how you can promote the qualities of conscientiousness in your classroom without inadvertently reinforcing compliance? (For instance, if you were teaching students that conscientious workers are able to read and follow directions, how might you show them the difference between someone who is blindly following the directions (compliance) and someone who is being conscientious?)
