Form 5 General Studies (GS) – LIFE SKILLS

PERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

1. Personal skills

These skills are such as self- awareness self – steam, assertiveness, copying with emotion, decision making and negotiation to mention just a few

a) Self awareness

– involves the ability of individuals to know and understand their potentialities, feeling, biases, emotions, weaknesses and strengths. People should not live as if there are no reasons to live. People should know that, they have crucial reasons to live and objectives to accomplish so as to make the world as a good place for every person to live.

Self awareness helps a person to identify his/her areas of weakness and strength before taking any decision. It helps a person to understand his/her value and the need of taking care of his/her body or health.

Self awareness helps a person to cope with any situation including emotions. It helps a person to recognize emotions and ways to overcome emotions.

b) Assertiveness

Refers to the individual’s ability to express his/her emotions and needs without violating the rights of others and without being aggressive. Assertiveness is built by self esteem. It helps a person to have ability to respond confidently to any situation. It gives nglish-swahili/courage” target=”_blank”>courage to a person to find information or facts before making any decision. It makes a person to think and work for better results. Assertiveness makes a person to value and respect other people.

c) Self esteem:

It is acceptance of the way we are so one becomes proud on oneself. If a person has high self esteem, he/she can not engage in any attempt of changing her/his physical structure, the color of the skin, the style of the hair etc.

d) Coping with emotion/ stress:

Emotions are strong feelings such as fear, love, anger, shyness and the desire to be accepted or loved. Each individual has emotions. Emotions are unpredictable and often lead to actions that are not based on reasoning. On the other side,Stress is the body’s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. Stress can be caused by examination fever, broken relationship, family problems, unwanted pregnancies, death of a friend of family member etc. stress may result to pressure, mental disorder, heart attack etc.

Skills for coping with stress/emotions help an individual to identify or recognize stress/ emotion, understanding the causes and effects of stress/ emotion and make a right decision that take account of them. Failure to cope with stress/ emotions may lead to suicide, fighting, murder, divorce, pressure, heart attack, strokes, death etc.

e) Analytical skill:

Is the ability to visualize, articulate, and solve both complex and uncomplicated problems and concepts and make decisions that are sensible based on available information. Such skills include the ability to apply logical thinking, to gathering and analyzing information, designing and testing solutions to problems, and formulating plans.

f) Creative thinking skills:

Are the abilities that involve the generation of new ideas within or across domains of knowledge, established symbolic rules and procedures, It usually involves the behaviors of preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, elaboration, and communication.

Creative thinking skills help individuals or learners to engage in;

• Bringing together existing ideas into new configurations;
• Developing new properties or possibilities for something that already exists; and
• Discovering or imagining something entirely new.

g) Critical thinking skills

-involve the active, persistent, and careful consideration of a belief or form of knowledge, the grounds that support it, and the conclusions that follow.
It involves analyzing and evaluating one’s own thinking and that of others. Critical thinking skills help people to engage in;

•  Raising vital questions and problems and formulating these clearly and precisely;
• Gathering and assessing relevant information, and using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively;
• Reaching well-reasoned conclusions and solutions and testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
• Openly considering alternative systems of thought; and
• Effectively communicating to others the analysis of and proposed solutions to complex challenges.

 h) Problem solving technique: Is the ability to identify differences between actual state and desired state of affairs and then take the right actions or decision to clear the problem. A problem can be defined as a doubtful or difficult matter requiring a solution or something hard to understand or accomplish or deal with.
i) Decision making skill:

Ability to evaluate information and advice to make informed decisions, assess advantages and disadvantages of different options, change decision to adapt to new situations, and plan for future.

2. Interpersonal skills

-are the abilities for building positive relationship with other people. Building positive relationship with other people involves the ability of people to meet and relate with others in various settings. For instance when children grow up, they develop relation with family members, adults, peers and people they meet in life, hence children need to know how to react appropriately in each relationship they develop.

We have cases where children are cheated by adults who pretend to be their friends but with bad intentions. Children end up be mishandled, raped and even murdered. Parents have the responsibility of guiding children build this skill of positive relationship with others.

a) Friendship formation:

Is the ability to understand how friendships are formed, how to form and develop positive friendship. A person should be able to identify and recognize good and bad friendship through studying the behavior, perception and character of persons. A person should be able to resist relationship with people who have developed behaviors like telling lies, stealing, taking alcohol, dangerous sexual behavior( prostitution, anal sex, oral sex & homosexuality) etc.

b) Empathy:

Is the ability of putting oneself in other people‘s shoes with the intention of understanding them well and collecting more information about them that will enable a person to make right decisions and helping others overcome different problems and challenges in their life.

c) Peer resistance:

Is the ability to stand up for one’s values and beliefs conflicting ideas from friends or peers. Peers can come with unacceptable or wrong suggestions and may put pressure on one to accept the wrong suggestions. A person needs to defend his or her decision with strong and clear reasons of not accepting that ideas. If possible a person can even decide to stay apart from that group if he will be forced to accept unacceptable practice like taking illegal drugs.

d) Negotiation skills:

Is the ability to compromise on issues without destroying one’s principles, It helps a person to manage to state his or her own position and building mutual understanding with people without fighting or violence. It involves assertiveness, empathy and friendship formation skills.

e) Effective communication:

Is the ability of listening and understanding how others are communicating, as well as realizing how one can communicate in different ways, It is the ability to write, listen, express and use language properly. Effective communication gives a person access to collect information which will enable a person to improve his understanding and ability to make decision.

HOW PERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS CAN BE IN SOLVING SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEM
i) Life skills help to solve problem such as HIV/AIDS pandemic and the related problems.

ii) Life skills lead to the development of social awareness among different people ranging from family to national level.

iii) Personal and interpersonal skills increase the ability to plan a head and choose effective solution to problems.

iv) Personal and interpersonal skills address the needs of people with varying strength and weaknesses. They help to interact with other people appropriately.

v) Personal and interpersonal skills enhance working with a community holistically and with maximum cooperation.

vi) Personal and interpersonal skills are an integral part in preventing persisting problems such as drug abuse, unwanted pregnancies and suicide

vii) Through these lif skills people learn to cooperate manner, bargain collectively, struggle with peer pressure and solve problem.

viii) Personal and interpersonal skills empower the younger generation and assist them in facing the challenging situation in their lives

SELF RELIANCE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

THE CONCEPT OF SELF RELIANCE

The ability of an individual or community to depend on one’s own ability and efforts and not depending on another for one’s survival or

Self reliance is the ability, commitment and effort to provide the necessities of a life for self reliance and family. A self reliant person must neither rely on others assistance nor on government assistance, because nobody cares more about helping you or your family or times of difficulties than yourself

Example; you were recently laid off from your job and you need to look for another job if you don’t secure it you cannot feed yourself or your family or pay installments for your home. In such cases you don’t sit down and wait for the job to come to you. You go out and look for it. You do anything you can do in order to survive.

Entrepreneurship is the process of organizing, managing or assuming the risk of business for the sake of profit. The essence of entrepreneurship is the freedom to do what you want or like in order to make profit.

Entrepreneurship is an act of being entrepreneur.

Who is an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is the one who bring resources, labor and other assets into combinations that make their value greater than before.

Today, many young people express their motivations for becoming entrepreneurs in terms of satisfaction that entrepreneurship gives them as well as the sense of being in control of their own destinies

Examples of Entrepreneurs

-Nimrodi Mkono ─   Mkono company and advocates

-Reginald Mengi─ Ipp media(capital TV, ITV)

-Anthony Dialo─ Sahara communications(kiss FM, RFA)

-Yudkas Mremi─ Dar express company

-Billgates─ Microsoft cooperation

Generally both self reliant person and entrepreneurs take some initiations for personal and communication development

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