Teach life skills
Little of this can be handed to software today.
The reporting and paperwork around management automate well. Directing, developing and evaluating people does not, and people do not accept it when it is attempted on them.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Managing, training and developing people |
| Jobs that do it | 13 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Enterprise platforms |
| O*NET activity | Training and Teaching Others (4.A.4.b.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 13 occupations that perform it.
- Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, and social skills.
- Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, or social skills, to preschool students with special needs.
- Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification or positive reinforcement.
- Instruct students in daily living skills required for independent maintenance and self-sufficiency, such as hygiene, safety, or food preparation.
- Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification and positive reinforcement.
- Conduct classes, workshops, and demonstrations to teach principles, techniques, or methods in subjects, such as basic English language skills, life skills, and workforce entry skills.
- Conduct classes, workshops, and demonstrations, and provide individual instruction to teach topics and skills, such as cooking, dancing, writing, physical fitness, photography, personal finance, and flying.
- Teach social skills to students, such as communication, conflict resolution, and etiquette.
- Conduct classes or deliver lectures on subjects such as nutrition, home management, and farming techniques.
- Teach social skills to students.
- Teach proper eating habits and personal hygiene.
- Teach students personal development skills, such as goal setting, independence, and self-advocacy.
- Teach personal development skills, such as goal setting, independence, and self-advocacy.
- Teach students personal development skills, such as goal setting, independence, or self-advocacy.
- Instruct students in daily living skills required for independent maintenance and self-sufficiency, such as hygiene, safety, and food preparation.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Buy nothing. The reporting and paperwork around management run on whatever you already use for documents, and the part that is actually managing people does not automate at any price.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Enterprise platforms
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
13 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors
- Farm and Home Management Educators
- Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education
- Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education
- Self-Enrichment Teachers
- Special Education Teachers, Elementary School
- Special Education Teachers, Kindergarten
- Special Education Teachers, Middle School
- Special Education Teachers, Preschool
- Special Education Teachers, Secondary School
- Substitute Teachers, Short-Term
- Teaching Assistants, Preschool, Elementary, Middle, and Secondary School, Except Special Education
- Teaching Assistants, Special Education
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Teach life skills”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.