I'm not going to go into what light the gospel sheds on gaining social skills because that would open the door for an eternal conversation, but it sufficeth me to say that in this realm of folk knowledge the scriptures do give us a major head start on the rest of the world! No, what I want to share is that social skills are an art almost more primal than most things we consider "folk knowledge". You follow the example of others and learn what works and what doesn't in social situations through experimentation. I think that no matter how many books you read, how much advice you receive from others, it's still something you have to gain for yourself. There's a certain amount of genuine-ness (yes that is a new word) that you can not gain through the traditional folk knowledge paths. Having good social skills is so vital to our success in life (in school, our careers, creating relationships, preforming meaningful service, etc.) that it's a shame we can't have our mother sit down with us once and explain the basics and we're good to go. Gaining social skills is a lifetime endeavor I believe, so even though I would label it as "folk knowledge," that doesn't make it any more challenging to gain.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Social Skills
OK so I'm going to start off this group's blog by talking more about folk knowledge and about a skill that I think is one of the more vital pieces of folk knowledge we can gain. I consider it a survival skill, especially for all of us in this particular time and place where real "survival skills" are kind of irrelevant. What I am talking about is social skills, which I will freely admit is a skill/gift I am actively obsessed with. In fact, I believe that social skills are the survival skills of our society.
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I definitely agree with the fact that social skills can determine our success in certain aspects of life. Although we can't read a book or have a lesson on improving our social skills- we can improve everyday- without even trying. For instance, in just these past few weeks as I have been interacting with lots of people from different areas of the United States, and with different interests, I have noticed that my comfortability level in terms of social interaction has increased- without much purposeful effort on my behalf.
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Social skills are definately survival skills. Some of the more primitive cultures such as African tribes rely heavily on social skills. It is social skills that allow the tribe to be unified and be able to commuicate clearly. Through social skills the tribe can defend itself agaist other tribes, organize hunts, and harvest food. Without social skills the tribe would not be a group but a collection of individuals that would be an easy target for other tribes, famine, etc.
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ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that I've been able to see this happen just in the last couple weeks at BYU. At the beginning everything is just a mosh-posh of people with pretty much no pre-established cliques. It is in this way many people (me included!) really find their place and learn how to successfully be society. --Ryan Chandler (I can't find out how to get it to show my name...)
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that you said that *even* though it was folk knowledge it wasn't any [I assume you meant "less" here, rather than "more" because social skills can be seriously difficult] challenging to gain. This sounds like normally we would assume that book learning is harder. I think a lot of people do assume this, but I also think that in a lot of cases, the folk knowledge is more difficult. I think we probably spend a lot more time in our lives practicing things like interacting with people than we realize.
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