Competencies and Mindsets

A Lakeside School education is designed to prepare students to navigate their world — both now and in the future.Based on years of research and practice, the school community identified competencies and mindsets that students should engage with during their time at Lakeside. We believe that a deep grounding with these competencies and mindsets will prepare students for success in their future educational goals and their personal and professional lives.

Lakeside defines competencies as what graduates can do, and mindsets as who graduates are – what they value, how they behave, and the frames through which they see the world. While content, sometimes referred to as “domain knowledge” (dates, equations, etc.), remains important, it will become secondary to what students can do with their knowledge and the values which will guide their actions.

Learn more about competencies and mindsets in this article and find the full list below.

Competencies – What graduates can do

Cognitive Flexibility

Lakeside students demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Content knowledge acquisition:
The student’s ability to use a variety of learning strategies to acquire and retain content knowledge efficiently and effectively to the level of mastery required for the task at hand.

Cross-disciplinary thinking: The student’s ability to recognize and apply the content, kinesthetic, technological, or social-emotional knowledge and skills learned in one setting to another, to aid in framing questions and identifying and solving problems.

Courage in the face of the unknown: The student’s ability to make decisions, solve problems, and take appropriate risks when information is incomplete or unknowable.

Letting go of work and starting over: The student’s ability to recognize when a strategy is not viable and abandon, reframe, or redirect their work.

Discernment: The student’s ability to assess when to concede to the view of another and when to stand firm in a position.

Collaboration and Leadership

Lakeside students demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Accountability: The student’s ability to meet their responsibilities, including manage their time, and take ownership of the impact of their words and actions.

Taking initiative: The student’s ability to create or seize opportunities to learn, grow, and act in enterprising, resourceful, respectful, and ethical ways.

Conflict resolution: The student’s ability to find a fair, peaceful, and successful resolution to a disagreement or dispute.

Being a team player: The student’s ability to transcend their personal interests to help a group or team achieve shared success.

Feedback: The student’s ability to give meaningful feedback in a helpful, productive manner and accept feedback in a receptive, graceful way. Feedback is defined as constructive observations and assessments that help individuals grow, learn, and improve.

Communication and Listening

Lakesiders demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Active listening: The student’s ability to identify the meaning, intent, and effect of verbal and non-verbal forms of communication to gain understanding, evaluate, think critically, empathize, and engage.

Speaking and presenting: The student’s ability to connect, persuade, inform, or inspire using analytical, creative, and personal expression, orally and visually, in ways that best suit the audience and purpose, while being accurate, informative, and engaging.

Active reading: The student’s ability to understand and interpret complex written and other visual communication.

Compelling writing and visual communications: The student’s ability to use analytical, creative, and personal expression in written and other visual forms to persuade, inform, or inspire the desired audience, while being accurate, informative, and engaging.

Articulating multiple perspectives: The student’s ability in all of their communications, throughout the research, development, and presentation of materials, to pursue information with the intent to understand and represent multiple viewpoints in social, historical, political, and cultural contexts.

Introspection and Emotional Intelligence

Lakesiders demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Empathy: The student’s capacity to understand others’ emotions, thoughts, and experiences and use this understanding to inform their own behavior.

Self-awareness: The student’s ability to reflect on and articulate how they feel (emotions), what they know (thoughts, experiences), and what they may not yet know and so need to learn about.

Mindfulness: The student’s ability to be open, curious, and present in the moment.

Emotional regulation: The student’s ability to identify their emotions, the causes and effects of those emotions, and to use this knowledge to acknowledge and manage unproductive emotions and capitalize on productive emotions.

Values-based decision-making: The student’s ability to identify their core principles and use these principles intentionally to inform their behavior.

Resilience

Lakesiders demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Learning from mistakes: The student’s ability to take well-considered risks; to reflect, to gain knowledge and skills from any failures; and manage outcomes in positive ways.

Taking responsibility for mistakes: The student’s ability to claim their role in a problematic situation, accept consequences, and pursue corrective and appropriate solutions.

Grit: The student’s ability to keep working toward a goal, regardless of failures, obstacles, or setbacks, seeking help when appropriate.

Unstructured Problem-Solving

Lakesiders demonstrate this competency through the following skills:

Creativity and imagination: The student’s ability to apply unbridled curiosity and resilient action to develop innovative solutions to complex problems and creative endeavors.

Critical analysis: The student’s ability to identify key questions, challenge assumptions, break problems into component parts, recognize patterns, and draw viable conclusions.

Research skills: The student’s ability to find, interpret, and evaluate information to test hypotheses, answer key questions, and solve problems.

Mindsets – Who graduates are

Equity and Inclusion

Lakesiders acting with an equity and inclusion mindset:

Are aware of their biases.

Engage with and seek to understand experiences and perspectives unlike their own.

Respect and accept individuals for who they are.

Act as an ally and advocate for others, including marginalized people or communities, and seek to include those who are left out.

Replace judgment and assumptions with curiosity and inquiry.

Confront unfairness and discrimination.

Understand systems of power, privilege, and oppression and work to dismantle those systems.

Ethical

Lakesiders acting with an ethical mindset:

Honor the Lakeside School Statement of Community Expectations.

Reflect and take appropriate action when they have done something wrong and seek to repair harm done.

Reflect and find an appropriate way to take thoughtful action against unethical or illegal behavior in others, whether on or off campus or online.

Speak up and defend the rights and safety of themselves and others.

Resist and take action to stop language or behavior that denigrates the identity, character, or physical well-being of themselves or others.

Use technology responsibly and ethically.

Do not seek unfair or dishonest advantage for themselves.

Seek opportunities both large and small to make the world a better place for others.

Global

Lakesiders acting with a global mindset:

Regularly explore current and historical global events, making relevant connections with course content and in their daily lives.

Perceive and claim their own culture and the complex and interrelated components of identity.

Demonstrate respect for other cultures within and beyond the Lakeside community by bringing curiosity, openness, sensitivity, and empathy to interactions with and about people from other cultures.

Recognize and adjust to cultural cues to aid in communication and connection with people from cultures similar to and different from their own.

Critically examine cultural bias, both their own and that of others, as well as the impacts of cultural biases and practices.

Learn and use additional languages.

Growth and Learning

Lakesiders acting with a growth and learning mindset:

Are committed to lifelong learning.

Measure progress and success through effort and growth.

Set concrete and realistic expectations for improvement.

Seek clarification and guidance to improve.

Are open to varied points of view, solutions, or endpoints.

Embrace critique, multiple iterations, and reflection as part of the learning process.

Celebrate and take inspiration from others’ successes and growth.

Are self-motivated to learn deeply, build new skills, and explore nuances.

Identify their own learning styles and have the humility to make adaptations accordingly.

Healthy

Lakesiders acting with a healthy mindset:

Prioritize mental, physical, emotional, and social health over competition, grades, appearance, socially fitting in, and technology and media use.

Prioritize sleep.

Use effective stress-management tools.

Engage in a consistent program of nutrition, hydration, movement, play, exercise, and personal reflective practice.

Use available resources for information and guidance on making healthy choices; connect with teachers, advisors, coaches, or counselors, as well as personal resources like family, friends, doctors, and faith communities.

Explore interests and passions, and embrace joy, fun, and positivity.

Service

Lakesiders acting with a service mindset:

Have the humility to ask, listen, and do what is needed; collaborate in ways that build mutual trust and reciprocal relationships.

Purposefully choose their own types of service, considering the impacts on self, others, community, and world.

Bring passion, open-mindedness, and strong ethics to all acts of service.

Actively share their time, ideas, work, encouragement, or other contributions.

Reflect on what is learned during and after a service experience, exploring and defining personally what makes service meaningful.

Engage in service projects with local, regional, national, or global communities.

Sustainability

Lakesiders acting with a sustainability mindset:

Consider the impact of their daily actions on our natural world and make choices that support its health and long-term viability.

Make choices that support long-term sustainable use of environmental, economic, and social resources.

Advocate for specific projects in the school or community that promote behaviors to strengthen aspects of sustainability in our community.