Critical Skills

Welcome to the Critical Skills Blog, home to over a thousand human-generated articles—never AI—on topics that matter to continuous education. To find articles of interest, use the “Search” tab. Please feel free to comment, and please subscribe. All content on this site is free.

  • Sex and the Doom Loop

    Some food for thought for Doom Loop followers. More⇢

  • Polls Capture Public’s Sour View of Common Core

    Education Week has reported that a pair of high profile polls by PDK/Gallup and Education Next show growing opposition to implementation of the Common Core Standards. The source of the principal opposition to the Common Core appears to be a misconception by the public that the standards are a “top-down”… More⇢

  • Are Our Colleges Really “Doomed?” Is Minerva the Answer?

    Graeme Wood writes an interesting article in the current (September 2014) issue of The Atlantic Monthly that discusses a start-up online university called Minerva that aims to reinvent colleges by stripping them down to their essence: no lectures, no football games, no ivy, no research libraries, etc. The impetus for… More⇢

  • Recruiting With The “Doom Loop”

    Yes, the Doom Loop has a place in the recruiting world. In fact, I have used it countless times with considerable effectiveness. In fact, the Doom Loop was created during a recruiting session – albeit at the MBA level as described in the Doom Loop Blog. Whenever I was in… More⇢

  • 2011 Gallup Poll – 71% of American Workforce “Doomed?”

    A 2011 Gallup report said that “Seventy-one percent of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive. That leaves nearly one-third of American workers who are “engaged,” or involved in and enthusiastic… More⇢

  • No Ducking the Common Core – Or Similar Standards

    The current issue of Education Week has a good article worth reading and reflecting upon. It concerns the Common Core Standards and the opposition in some states to those standards. There are three problems associated with the Common Core Standards: Teaching to the Common Core is difficult; Assessing mastery of… More⇢

  • For Businesses

    Much has been written and discussed about core competencies and how they are used to define the uniqueness of a company or organization.  Core competencies, however, are not critical skills – even though a particular company will have its own set of critical skills that are similar to or even… More⇢

  • Seventh Graders Conduct Sophisticated PBL Project To Practice Critical Skills

    The seventh grade science class at Briggs Middle School in Eugene, Oregon provides an excellent and highly creative example of learning and practicing the critical skills through a project involving their school’s environment. During the winter months from December 2011 until March 2012, the seventh grade students were faced with… More⇢

  • “Houston, we have a problem!” Critical Skills at their finest!

    It was just a short transmission.  “Houston, we have a problem,” Captain James A. Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, said calmly. That was an understatement; and it set in motion one of the most dramatic examples of application of the critical skills in history. It was April 1970 and the… More⇢

Meet Your Host – Charles Cranston Jett

Charles Cranston Jett is an author, civic educator, and Professional Certified Coach based in Chicago. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (Class of 1964) and Harvard Business School, he served during the Cold War aboard the nuclear submarine USS Ray (SSN 653), where his tactical innovations helped inspire Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character. He developed the Field Studies methodology to teach “Critical Skills” and was endorsed by the Department of Labor in 1994. He is the author of six books, including Super Nuke!, hosts three podcasts, and writes across his Critical Skills Blog and Civic Sage platforms on history, leadership, and the health of the American republic. He and his wife, Dr. Nancy Church, co-host the Chicago Salons at Water Tower Residences.