Key Educational Competencies (KEC)

What You Get is Who You Become

Instead of making lists of schools, we help students develop skills.

We pioneered the concept of key educational competencies to guide our practice. Like other tools, the KEC may be improved or replaced by a more useful device at a future date. For now, the concept functions as an heuristic device: it is nothing more or less than a learning aid. Here is an overview of the KEC, their organization and advantages.

An Outline of Key Educational Competencies

Cognitive Capabilities: Combating Cluelessness

Analytical Skills: This Is What?

• accessing information
• evaluating evidence

Interpretive Skills: So What If It Is?

• comparing elements
• generalizing to larger units

Interpersonal Capabilities: Playing Well With Others

Communication Skills: Signs of Intelligent Life

• verbalizing: listening & speaking
• writing

Adaptation Skills: Where’s This Going?

• collaborating
• initiating

Three Advantages of Key Educational Competencies

(With Asides on Snowboarding and Falling in Love)

1. UNBOUNDED: You can never be too educationally competent.
   An important aspect of the KEC is the absence of an end point. As with the challenging activities of snowboarding or getting to know better the person with whom you’re falling in love, the moment never arrives when you can shout, “I’ve got it! I understand it all!” Because of this unbounded quality, individuals at all levels of proficiency can continue to refine their KEC.
2. ENDURING: Your key educational competencies come without an expiration date.
   The latest technological upgrades make snowboards more maneuverable. The actions of people in love vary by community and generation, as well as by personal orientation–it’s that history and biography dualism, once again. With respect to duration, key educational competencies differ from sports equipment and mating practices. Unless everyone on the planet suddenly and improbably becomes telepathic and omnipotent, human beings will continue to rely on the KEC. That’s why we at Becker Academic, LLC, call them key.
3. INTEGRAL: You and your key educational competencies are inseparable.
   You may arrive at a destination airport only to discover that your snowboard has become lost luggage. You may be compelled to endure a season apart from your beloved. However, assuming a baseline of physical, behavioral and psychological health, the KEC will stay with you throughout your life course–including the months and years before, during and after college. Regardless of whether you are aware of it, you rely on your KEC all day, everyday, inside and outside the classroom. The key educational competencies are integral to your sense of self: helping you understand the world and helping the world understand you.