What This Year Taught Me About the Skills Our Kids Actually Need

Written By Claudette Shatto

Machines can analyze.
Machines can calculate.
Machines can replicate.

What they cannot do is empathize, connect, or read the room.
Which means the most future-ready skill set isn’t technical. It’s emotional intelligence.

This year reminded me that we aren’t preparing kids for more content.
We are preparing them for complexity.
The world ahead will reward the humans who can collaborate, communicate, self-regulate, innovate, recover, and lead with empathy.

And I saw it everywhere this year.

I spent the last twelve months inside classrooms, libraries, conferences, business fairs, keynote spaces, and early childhood events. A pattern was impossible to miss:

Kids are ready for more.
Educators are craving change.
The system hasn’t caught up.

At the Children’s Business Fair, I watched students build businesses, solve problems, talk to customers, and pivot when something didn’t go as planned. These weren’t simulated skills…they were lived.

No grades.
No rubric.
Just creativity, courage, and self-belief in real time.

This year confirmed three truths I cannot shake:

1. Courage is a learned skill.

Not a personality trait. Not a talent. A skill kids can practice.

2. Creativity is not fluff. It’s currency.

Especially in an AI-powered world where originality is the differentiator.

3. SEL and entrepreneurship are the same muscle.

Resilience, problem-solving, self-regulation, risk-taking: these are the traits that unlock opportunity.

Not someday.
Now.

As we close the year, I’m carrying one question with me:

What if we redesigned education around the human skills machines can’t replace?

Because the future won’t belong to the most compliant.
It will belong to the most courageous.

Claudette Shatto

Claudette has called Napa Valley home for over 25 years. She’s a professor of Business & Entrepreneurship at Napa Valley College, a keynote speaker, and the author of Gazill Hill, a multicultural children’s book that introduces leadership, courage, and a growth mindset to young readers.

Claudette was named Best Educator by the Napa Valley Register and received Napa Valley College’s Distinguished Teaching Award for her commitment to student success. Her passion project is teaching leadership and entrepreneurial thinking to children through school visits, community workshops, and storytelling. Whether she’s in a college classroom, leading a business workshop, or reading to first graders, Claudette is committed to helping students of all ages step into their potential.

Follow her journey on social @claudetteshatto.

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