Life Skill concept

1. Basic Concept of Life Skill
Skills are an amalgam of understanding, proficiency, and attitude. All these elements must be provided for in learning activities which are intended to promote skill development. Moreover, these elements must be the direct object of the educational activity rather than an incidental by-product
According to WHO, Life Skill is the positive behavior capacity and adaptive that supported someone to effectively overcome the demand and the challenge during his life. In National Educational Regulations no 20/2003 article 26 verse 3 were named that Life Skill Education was classed as formal education, which gave personal skill, social, the intellectual and vocational to work autonomously.
In order to impart essential skills effectively and successfully to the youth, Secondary Education must take into account the four pillars of education mentioned in the Delors Report 1996 those are learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together. The Peking Secondary Education Expert Meeting Report (2001) also, recommends that an effective secondary education in the twenty-first century must provide a good balance between academic education and skill development including technical and vocational education at the secondary level.
There are today more and more societal pressures from increased connectedness, greater complexity, uncertainty and diversity, rapid changes in the environment.
Around the world, Life Skill-Based Education (LSBE) is being adopted as a means to empower young people in challenging situations. LSBE refers to an interactive process of teaching and learning which enable learners to acquire knowledge and to develop attitudes and skills which support the adoption of healthy behaviors.
Life Skill is a skill and courage for facing life problems, and always try to be proactive and creative for passing it henceforth. The term problem is meant broadly, pertaining to all kinds of subject matter and all domains of human activity. Both simple and highly complex problems must be included, so must precisely stated and well-structured problems as well as those which are loosely defined and weakly structured.
Life Skill as an implementation of Broad Based Education has a larger definition than vocational skill (skill for working). Even a man who not working such as housewife, she needs the life skill. Because they have any life problems which need solve. However the secondary school students need the life skill, in case they have life problem especially in their study. To realize this life skill education, we have to apply Broad Based Education which is not only oriented in vocational or academic skill but also oriented toward learning how to learn and learning how to unlearn, not only study about the theory but also practice the theory to solve daily life problem (Bently, 2000).

2. Life Skill History
The Peking Secondary Education Expert Meeting Report (2001) also, recommends that an effective secondary education in the twenty-first century must provide a good balance between academic education and skills development including technical and vocational education at the secondary level. There are today more and more societal pressures from increased connectedness, greater complexity, uncertainty and diversity, rapid changes in the environment and continued deprivation. The youth are at the cross roads of their lives facing an uncertain future, learning to assume the responsibilities of adulthood and to enter the world of work. The life skills required by youth in secondary education can be grouped under four categories as follows:
a. Skills for personal fulfillment. As technological development progresses very rapidly, the education system must take into consideration not only academic needs but also the skills needed for the individual-in other words life skills. The necessity of learning to know is more important than the traditional pedagogy of the past. The groups of skills listed below also contribute to personal fulfillment.
b. Skills for living in society. The need for social and intercultural competence and skills in the non-cognitive behavioral areas including responsibility, tolerance and accountability. The need to learn how to learn, to navigate from one body of knowledge to another and from one set of skills to another with relative ease. The need for critical, analytical, creative and flexible communicative competence. The need to enlist in the tasks of sustainable development, to be able to deal with paradox and the conflict generated by the amount and pace of change.
c. Skill for dealing with changing economies. The need to adapt to the changing demands of economies evolving from purely industrial to being knowledge-based, high technology and /or service oriented. The need for possess or learn new skill, such as adaptability and problem solving abilities and competitiveness. There is also need to emphasize the life skills that underpin initiative, motivation and entrepreneurship.
d. Skill for dealing with changing work patterns. The need to meet the demands of new work patterns that require the ability to communicate, work in teams, adapt to change, be innovative and creative and be able to utilize new technology. The need for essential generic competencies such as analytical skills and problem solving skills that are applicable to a wide range of circumstances and are necessary for all work.
In order to impart essential skills effectively and successfully to the youth, Secondary Education must take into account the four pillars of education mentioned in the Delors Report (1996); learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together.
A study bases on skill life has a rational background and can be seen from three dimensions, even from macro dimension (in large scale), middle or micro scale. Seen from macro dimension, it I an effort to give complex skill to Indonesian Human Resource to compete in global emulation. In middle scale, it is an effort to offer the boys or girls of a region a skill to develop their region. In micro (but in long-range), it is an effort to supply the students various skills those would be useful to solve their daily problem. Life skill can be developed from Broad Based Education, School Based Management and Community Based Education.
Broad Based Education System is a concept of education that speeds up gaining life skill process. Its main target is to accommodate community's need on education in order to obtain proper job according to life standard. School Based Management is an idea that places authority to management of school as an entities system. In this format, the headmaster and teachers as a group of professional with other connected elements (stakeholders of the school) assumed to have capacity to comprehend strength weakness, opportunity and challenge those faced by the school in effort developing the wanted programs of school according to school's vision and mission. Community Based on Education is an idea to place school orientation in contextual environment (characteristic, condition and community need) where that education institute located. School program on developing this orientation should reflex its existence, characteristic and community need.
Position of Life Skill Development according to concept of School Based Management, Community Based Education, and Broad Based Education
(Ditjen Dimenum, 2002)

Life skill includes some aspects:
1) Communication Skills
2) Decision-making skills
3) Resource and time-management skills
4) Planning Skills

3. Life Skill goals
Life Skill Education goals, there are:
a. To bring the student potency to develop student’s motivation so they can participate in education revision
b. To give the opportunity to the school to develop flexible learning, in accordance with the broad based education principle
c. To maximize the utilization of School environment resources by giving the utilization opportunity of available resources in the community, in accordance with the management based on school principle.
d. For student as provision to face and solve life problem either as a good personal independent, the community member and nation resident to minimize the bulk jobless.
Based on taxonomy aim of skill education, it had 6 classifications:
a. Basic skill including practical skills, such as sewing, cooking, trading, etc.
b. Higher skill or advanced skill including some advantage able skills such as communication management business
c. Interconnected skill is the skill that related to other skills and other sciences
d. Creative-art skill.
e. Motivational skills that is the capacity to show various active and positive motive powers both intrinsic and extrinsic.
f. Experience skill, where in this case the experience is very crucial point to develop. The experience is defined as the value of the critical observation result or the selected incident that reconstructed and consolidated.
Life skill relates to employability skill, where there are 3 main skills
a. Basic skill
1) Oral communication skill
2) Reading (understand and able to flow with thought path)
3) Mastering basic accounting
4) Writing skill
b. High level thought skill
1) Problem solving skill
2) Learning skill
3) Innovative and creative thinking skill
4) Decision-making skill
c. Affective character and skill
1) Responsibility
2) Positive attitude to work
3) Honesty, carefulness, industriousness and efficiency
4) Interpersonal connection, cooperation and team work
5) Self confidence and have positive attitude to own self
6) Adjustable and flexible
7) Full of enthusiasm and initiation
8) Discipline and self authority
9) Dress up and nice look
10) Having personal integrity
11) Capable to work sufficiency without any observation of others
Marking studies of life skill are:
a. Having identification process of learning need
b. Having resuscitation process to learn together
c. Having compatible learning process to develop self existence, learning, self-supporting effort and cooperation effort
d. Having dominating process of personal, social, vocational, academic, managerial and entrepreneur competency
e. Having process of giving experience to work right and to yield certifiable product
f. Having interaction process to learn to the expert
g. Having process of assessing competency
h. Having technical adjacent to work or to build cooperation

4. Scope of Life Skill
a. Experience
The experience is the crucial problem that was critical for one’s maturity in undergoing his life profession or his skills. However, while the experience is only interpreted as the “age period of the work” not as the value of productivity (civilization’s culture), then in that case the experience will become the “prison” for one’s maturity power and potential in undergoing his life.
Then, in the context of education, teacher has important role to give the students some experiences. Each educator must control skills to train and lead the pupils to have desire to study and observe the right problem solving.

b. Motivation
The motivation is everything which motivates or drives someone to do something with a certain aim. The motivation is divided into two kinds those are:
1) Physiological drive is the motivation which is come from physiological motives. Such as like, dislike, hungry, etc.
2) Social motives are the motivation which is related with social condition. Such as aesthetics motives, ethics motives, etc.
Or also the motivations are divided into two kinds those are:
1) Intrinsic motive is the motive that comes from her self.
2) Extrinsic motive is the motive that comes out of her self.

c. Orientation and Culture
Education is main capital for modernization. The corrupt and bad education system also produced bad students. For example from the fatal mistake in our education system is memorizing method. A teacher who only teach and ask his pupils to memorize the names of the cities and villages all along the north coast the Javanese Island from Surabaya to Jakarta or vice versa, without teaches the students how to read the map. So as when the change all along this roads happening, the children do not know. Then, it might be better if the teacher teaches them to read the map than memorizing the cities and villages. So as the students are good in reading the map and to be good to search where they are and where they must go.

d. Talent and autonomy in human being's mind
Talent is Gift. The talent is given from God and the talent is accustomed. Allah gives to each of His creature talent. That gift is: self-awareness, creative imagination, conscience, and independent will. Then, human responsible as the recipient of this mandate is to empower the God's four gifts maximally and optimally.
The talent is one’s condition that by education and training enabled someone to achieve the skill and knowledge. Especially in this case, the talent is integrating the predisposing factor and the milieu influence. So, if someone born with the special talent, if he is educated and trained, this talent could be developed and used optimally and vice versa.
The talent is the combination of 3 essential elements that have similar importance in determining one’s talent there are; intelligence, creativity, and responsibility. Intelligence and also its aspects could be measured by psychological test, including the capacity and level of the public's intellect. Aspects of the intellectual capacity in part included logical abstract, verbal capacity, social understanding, numeric capacity, and basic technique. Alfred Bitnet said that intelligence is a most united process that involved consideration, problem solving, and reasoning. Creativity according to Guilford could be considered from aptitude characteristics such as the smoothness, flexibility, and originality, non aptitude characteristics including the temperament and motivation as well as the commitment completed the task
There are nine intelligences that possibly to be owned by someone that is:
1) Logical mathematical
2) Linguistic/Verbal
3) Visual Spatial
4) Musical
5) Bodily-Kinesthetic
6) Interpersonal
7) Intrapersonal
8) Natural
9) Moral/Spiritual

5. Classification of Life Skill
It has two important classifications :
a. Generic Life Skill (GLS), which included:
1) Personal Skill, it is including Self Awareness and Thinking Skill
2) Social Skill, it is including Communication Skill and Collaboration Skill.
a) Self Awareness, included: Realized and thank to God that he has gotten the surplus and the lack. And at the same time, use it for increasing him self as the individual which useful for himself and his environment.
b) Thinking Skill, included:
(1) Information Search
(2) Information process and decision making skill
c) Social Skill, Included:
(1) Communication Skill
(2) Collaboration Skill
b. Specific Life Skill (SLS),that included :
1) Academic Skill, that included Identifying Variables and Describing Relationship among them, Constructing Hypotheses, and Designing and Implementing the research.
2) Vocational Skill which more related to the work field that more needed Motorist skill, it is include Basic Vocational Skill and Occupational Skill. Vocational Skill related to the certain work field that gotten in the community. Basic Vocational Skill included:
a) Carrying out the Basic Movement
b) Using the simple implement
c) Reading the simple picture
d) Obedient, precision, on time, and productive behavior
Basic Vocational is only needed by person who wants to be expert in a certain job according to them. Such as car service for who wants to be expert in automotive skill cut the spice for who wants to be expert in cook science.