" Having said man's very nature to associate himself with other people all the more gives but rational explanation to why it is very important for the children, even during their elementary years in school, to develop their interpersonal skills. In different settings, excellent interpersonal skills have always led to excellent dyadic relationships and team dynamics, and therefore generating excellent outputs. As Hogan (2004) also articulated, our personalities determine how we can be leaders in our own right within the teams we belong to. The elementary students - because of their young minds and fresh ideas - may need to be instructed how to deal with their personal needs as well as the needs of the people around them. they must learn how to interact people in a positive way. They must learn to understand the value of giving and sharing in the same way that they should learn how to communicate what they want and what they can give.

Enhancing the elementary student's interpersonal skills is not rally part of the school curriculum, but it should be taught to the students. Both the teachers and the students' parents can work interactively and cooperatively to impart the proper values and techniques to developing the elementary students' interpersonal skills. The teachers can prepare the foundation for boosting the interpersonal skills of the students and continuously develop it in the day-to-day discussion within the school premises. The parents, on the other...

Once developed, this skill will never be forgotten nor can ever be thrown away. The enhanced and/or developed interpersonal skills will always be evident to the elementary student wherever he/she may be and until he/she grows old.
This is exactly the very essence of teaching and learning. Teaching and learning is not merely imparting and/or accepting knowledge about the required school curriculum like Math, Science and English among others. It is not compounded in the four corners of the school nor is it a responsibility of the teachers or educators alone. By teaching the elementary students with interpersonal skills, even if it is not directly part of the curriculum, the teachers are able to uphold the very vision and mission of any educational institution - and that is imparting knowledge in a manner that the students will be able to properly use such knowledge in facing the world.

References

Aristotle. 2006. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-arist.html

Barry, David. (1991). Managing the Bossless Team: Lessons in Distributed Leadership. http://www.geocities.com/drdavidbarry/DistributedLeadership.doc

Butler, Timothy and James Waldroop. (2004). Leveraging Your Team's Interpersonal Skills. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4187.html

Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. The School Journal (65), 3.

Friend, Fred. (1999). Why Project Leaders Succeed: Project Leader Skills Survey Results. http://www.coachingandmentoring.com/plssresults.htm

Hogan, Robert. (2004). What we know about Leadership. (http://www.hoganassessments.com/_HoganWeb/Documents/WhatWeKnow (HoganKaiser).pdf.

Social Animal. (2007). http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/5825