Student Core Competencies

Introduction — The Why:

Competencies serve as a means of communicating what Pingry is prioritizing in aligning the school program around a collective vision of student success.

Pingry is in the business of graduating people … we do not graduate students. These competencies reflect how we want our students to show up in the world as people, and they spell out what we want our students to become as a result of their time at Pingry.

The competencies help to provide a common language about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should develop. While helping students develop competencies is understood to be important to ourwork as faculty, there is something powerful about making this commitment, and the competencies themselves, explicit and then anchoring them to our mission and shared values.

What Exactly are Competencies?

Combinations of knowledge, skills, dispositions, mindsets, and attitudes that are transferable across disciplines, situations, and settings.

From the 2018 Strategic Plan: "It is increasingly evident that to prepare our graduates for success in that future, we must redouble our emphasis on developing within them an ethical framework and the strength of character to apply that framework; a commitment to serving the greater good; intellectual, academic collaboration, and cultural competency skills; and the passion, determination, and resilience to apply their skills, attributes, and character to something greater than themselves by solving important problems in order to make the world a better place for all."

The Result — Student Core Competencies Framework

Critical Thinking / Analysis

Involves intellectual exploration, questioning, analyzing evidence, and challenging assumptions. Students apply reasoned approaches to conceptualize, analyze, make judgements, and problem solve. Students’ thinking is guided by humility, integrity, fairness, reflection, and an open mind.

Inquiring about the world around them, having a desire to learn or explore new or interesting things, and seeking out diversity of thought
Synthesizing bits of thoughts and knowledge to discover new insights or extend current understandings
Framing problems with clarity and coherence, drawing plausible conclusions, and identifying how to move from what is known to what is sought, and then taking action
Questioning information and evaluating assumptions, while taking into account what is essential, secondary, and superfluous
Reflecting on one’s thinking and acknowledging its flaws in order to improve

Information Navigation

Involves accessing, interpreting, organizing, evaluating, and sharing information from a variety of sources, including social media. Students use critical thinking skills recognizing that truth, evidence, and facts compete for attention alongside rumors, hoaxes, and disinformation. Students seek, and use, information honorably and in a manner consistent with good character.

Understanding the facts before accepting a conclusion or formulating an opinion
Identifying, locating, and/or curating trustworthy sources through the use of research and inquiry tools
Evaluating for accuracy, perspective, credibility, bias, and relevance of information and soundness of claims
Engaging with and using information responsibly, including countering the diminishing role of truth, facts, and analysis in public life
Understanding the influence of hidden algorithms on what we see online, thinking like a fact checker, and identifying deceptive information

Creativity & Innovation

Involves producing new ideas or applying existing ideas to a new purpose in order to generate something of value. Students push beyond boundaries to connect disparate ideas (process) and develop or discover solutions (outcome). They play with ideas and embrace imagination, curiosity, ethics, and risk-taking.

Challenging assumptions and connecting seemingly disparate things in order to push beyond boundaries to uncover new syntheses or generate a novel or unique idea, question, solution, or product
Engaging in a design process to develop, test, and revise products, embracing the cyclical process of trial and error
Looking at constraints, mistakes, and setbacks as an opportunity for learning and improvement, or seeing something in a new way, drawing upon previous experience
Allowing oneself to experience flow, in which one is fully present and completely immersed in a task
Speculating and asking provocative questions, including about the relationship between creativity and ethics

Communication

Involves articulating, circulating, and exchanging ideas with others verbally and non-verbally. Students listen with empathy, share responsibly, consider the intended and unanticipated impact of messaging, and deal with disagreement respectfully. They are self-aware: they consider context, audience, occasion, and other cues when communicating.

Being alert and maintaining a sense of presence, with the intention of understanding a message
Conveying a message with a sense of voice using tools, styles, formats, and media appropriate to the audience, occasion, and purpose
Grasping the purpose or intention of a message in relation to audience and occasion, as well as platforms, tools, styles, formats, and media
Exchanging ideas with attention to others’ perspectives, feelings, experiences, intentions, and cues such as tone, selection of details, etc.
Understanding the intended and unanticipated impact of messaging, and dealing with disagreement respectfully

Collaboration

Involves working with others to get things done. Students value working with others and leverage the ideas, skills, and interests of others. They welcome the perspectives, cultural diversity, and contributions of others and regard them as central to the work or goal.

Listening to and acknowledging the feelings and concerns of others
Valuing and leveraging the knowledge, experience, skills, and contributions of peers and other collaborators
Demonstrating empathy and sensitivity to diverse cultures and contexts when working with others
Sharing and receiving ideas, feedback, and assistance from peers or other collaborators
Following, and even setting, ground rules for working together (i.e., agreeing on goals, assigning roles, coordinating jobs, distributing work)

Intercultural & Global Citizenship

Involves seeking and valuing diverse perspectives and appreciating one’s own culture and personal history, as well as the values and traditions of others. Students embrace diversity, work towards equity, and contribute to a climate of inclusion. Civic-minded, they understand their impact on others and work for the common good.

Recognizing that all people are individuals, but we are also members of socially constructed groups
Appreciating one’s own culture and personal history, as well as the values and traditions of others
Understanding that cultures and groups have historically been stratified, with statuses potentially affecting opportunities, access to resources built into institutions and cultural norms, and ability to thrive
Seeking and valuing diverse perspectives in order to inform and broaden one’s knowledge and understanding
Taking informed and responsible action to create equity and a sense of belonging and address ethical, social, and environmental challenges, while also evaluating the consequences of such action

Personal Growth & Well-Being

Involves taking care of emotional, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual dimensions of the self. Students show empathy and caring, including for themselves. They seek help and form healthy relationships. Students feel a sense of agency and purpose. They have integrity and are responsible for their actions. They take on positive, healthy challenges and are hopeful, flexible, and resilient in the face of setbacks and new or unexpected situations. They value healthful living and find time for what they enjoy.

Maintaining healthy relationships with family, peers, adults, food, sleep, and exercise, and consistently seeking support, guidance, and encouragement from trusted people
Approaching uncertainty and risk with forethought and determination, viewing one’s effort, resourcefulness, and resilience as signs of success
Finding meaning, purpose, joy, and satisfaction, along with a positive outlook on life that comes from looking inward rather than outward (e.g., grades) for validation and self-worth
Balancing different aspects of self—emotional, intellectual, and physical—and recognizing one’s connection and interdependence with other people and the world
Using the Honor Code’s underlying principles as a personal compass and acting with resolve by applying the principles for successful living, learning, and citizen-leadership

Additional Information

Competencies: What They Are Not!

While these competencies should inform teaching, learning, and programming, they are NOT intended to dictate classroom and pedagogical practices.

Student core competencies should instead be seen as a lens through which we’re reconsidering teaching and learning. It is important to note that we are also NOT in any way compromising the strength of our academic program. Rather, we are acknowledging that the students entrusted to our care are human beings with human needs—they are not machines. They need to be sufficiently prepared to meet the world ahead and make it better, and these Student Core Competencies will be their toolkit for doing so once they leave our campus.

Colleges value the core competencies we are now putting forth. As the standardized testing and college admissions landscape continues to change, we are seeing growing evidence of schools attempting to measure character, leadership, and community involvement when evaluating applicants. These colleges and universities want students who will make a lasting impact once they arrive on campus, and they are eager for ways to help measure potential for impact among applicants. After all, these are the very students who will one day be THEIR future alumni! Our newly-defined student core competencies will only make our Pingry students more attractive applicants to colleges and universities nationwide.

As noted by Tim Lear, Head of School, “colleges are searching for students who are intellectually brave and motivated to take action, students who are eager to collaborate, apply what they learn, and anticipate future challenges.”

Key Questions Explored

What does it mean to be globally, civically, and interculturally competent?
What kinds of proficiencies and dispositions do we think students need in order to discover alternative responses to challenges presented by the changing nature of today's jobs—or for work not yet invented?
Knowing Pingry students are prepared to thrive in college, what do we see as the demands beyond college and in the 21st century workplace?
What habits of mind and heart are essential for students to thrive as world citizens and leaders within and beyond the workplace?

Work Journey and Competencies Timeline

January 2020 — Formation of Student Competencies Task Force (SCTF)
March 2020 — Working Retreat
December 2020 through February 2021 — SCTF holds several competencies "drafting" sessions, folding in emerging information
February 2021 — SCTF holds working session with Department Chairs and then the full Academic Committee
February 2021 — Academic Committee approves competencies framework draft
March and April 2021 — Student Competencies hits the road for comment and feedback among various Pingry consituency groups
April 2021 — Competencies framework launched with Lower and Middle School faculty
October 2021 — Competencies framework launched with Upper School faculty
What's Next? — Parent meetings; student focus groups; audit of where the competencies are already implemented in the student experience; further integration into key curricular initiatives (Upper School Spring Intensives, Middle School Project Week, etc.); and proceed to full implementation!