A recent report from RBC Royal Bank predicts increasing workplace demand for foundational skills such as critical thinking, 协调, 社会洞察力, 积极倾听和解决复杂问题. Here graduands attend spring convocation at the University of British Columbia in 2015. 加拿大新闻社/Darryl Dyck

我不知道为什么我们称它们为“软技能”.”

它们当然不容易学, although they are as valuable and necessary as the skills doctors use in surgery, bankers use to assess risk and physicists use to split atoms.

沟通, 观察, empathy and logical thinking: These precious and frequently undervalued skills have everyday names.

我更喜欢称之为“基本技能”,因为我们每天都需要它们, 虽然我们并不总是很好地使用它们. They are the foundational skills that allow us to learn and live and work productively with other people. They are the skills that determine our chances of succeeding. 它们是领导的技能.

These essential skills are the ones most sought by some of the largest, 最成功的组织. Those blue-chip employers recognize that their future leaders are people who can understand and communicate about the world around them, who can see the whole picture and find ways to fit into it.

人们通过学习人文学科来学习这一点, the academic fields that have somehow fallen from the nest of subjects considered most worth studying.

颠覆时代的技能

自二战以来, 务实的, 科学的经验学科, 技术, 工程与数学(STEM), 还有商业, 已经崭露头角. 他们已经脱离了传统, 通才文科教育, which was designed to prepare students for full participation in the adult world.

现在，潮流似乎正在转变, as it becomes clear that essential skills enable us to adapt and thrive in our rapidly changing world and bring the technical skills to life.

RBC Royal Bank — a corporation known for its business successes — took a yearlong, cross-country look at what Canada’s job market will be like in the 2020s. 今年春天的报告, Humans Wanted: How Canadian youth can thrive in the age of disruption, 提出了一些令人信服的预测, 包括以下内容:

Increasing demand for foundational skills such as critical thinking, 协调, 社会洞察力, 积极倾听和解决复杂问题.

加拿大经济预计将增加2%.4 million jobs over the next four years, all of which will require this new mix of skills.

Global competencies such as cultural awareness, language and adaptability will be in demand.

Virtually all job openings will place significant importance on judgment and decision-making and more than two thirds will value an ability to manage people and resources.

The report confirms what many business leaders have been saying for years: Educators should be leaning harder on the humanities to build those foundational skills in graduates — not just through degree programs in the humanities, but also by incorporating more humanistic teaching into STEM and business education.

文科主宰着数字世界

Investor Mark Cuban says the employment market of the near future will demand fewer hard skills since technical tasks are increasingly being performed by computers. Instead, he says, we’ll need more people who can put information into human context.

史蒂夫•乔布斯, 已故的苹果公司联合创始人兼首席执行官, once said: “It is in Apple’s DNA that 技术 alone is not enough — it’s 技术 married with liberal arts, 与人文学科结合, 这样的结果使我们的心歌唱.”

Recent books such as Scott Hartley’s The Fuzzy and The Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World and Christian Madsbjerg’s Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm, 非常有力地提出类似的观点.

仍然, we keep still hearing the same question from parents and even from humanities students themselves: “What can you do with a humanities degree?”

同理心，宽容歧义，智慧

It can be hard to convince these parents and students that the humanities are the training they need.

你可能正在写一篇历史论文, 例如, but you’re developing important broader skills by doing it.

You’re gathering information from different points of view, you’re using it to marshal an effective argument and to present it effectively in writing, 有证据支持.

The fact that the content is history doesn’t matter in the end: You’re developing skills in research, 批判性思维和书面沟通能力.

A study conducted across five medical schools in the United States found that trainee doctors who were exposed to the humanities had higher levels of positive personal qualities such as empathy, 对模糊的容忍度, 智慧, 情商, 自我效能感和视觉空间技能. Exposure to the humanities also reduced levels of some components of burnout.

有价值的投资

We won’t need as many coders, but we will need people with digital literacy. 许多STEM工作将实现自动化. 颠覆性的文化需要能够适应的人.

It takes time to cultivate the essential skills that enable adaptation. Learning to work collaboratively and to understand new perspectives takes time.

Not everyone is willing to wait, nor do they necessarily trust the outcome of a humanities education. Many employers still recruit for degrees and credentials that apply specifically to the field. They may say the “soft skills” are important, but how much of a priority do they really make of them?

The skills that result from studying the humanities develop obliquely, and that may have caused us to lose our sense of their value.

然而，这些都是高度可转移的技能. 它们在今天是有价值和必要的. They are worth making the investments of time and trust, because they will be worth even more in the years to come.

安娜·莫罗

麦克马斯特大学人文系副院长