How important do you think people skills and good behaviour are for your career at school?

As one who is very introverted, and in my school years was burdened with total lack of self-esteem from childhood abuse, I can tell you that social skills can be useful but are not absolutely necessary.

In hindsight, I realize that being able to approach teachers and professors with my questions or concerns would have helped me advocate for myself in the classroom, and to network to help with career placement after graduation.

Being better able to socialize with my peers could have improved my studies, because I learned late in my schooling that it was helpful to interact with others – whether hearing how they perceived a concept, or expressing my understanding of a lesson – by looking at the subject from different angles and hearing myself apply language to abstract concepts.

@kiki__: “How important do you think people skills and good behaviour are for your career at school?”

Not sure what you are asking here? Are we at a career or school, or are we talking about a career in education?

Strong communication & good social skills are very important in all of our interactions in life, be they at work, amongst friends, family, or in negotiating anything of importance.
Being an extrovert I am easily able to interact well with others but this doesn’t mean they can interact back to the same degree. lol
I loathe passive aggressive types, just speak up, voice your opinions, ASK for what you want, SAY what you really MEAN and don’t play petty little games!

People skills probably matter if you go to school for economic advantages. Meet people who have influence and exploit the relationship like a good sociopath.

Welcome to Fluther.

As important as each of those things may be (and they are not synonymous, by the way, not by any means), they pale in comparison to “communication”. And communication can be most simply defined as “getting one’s point across” (or if you’re on the receiving end “understanding the other’s message”). With respect to this question you have failed. Your question is ill-defined, as others have already noted, because we don’t know if you’re a student, a teacher, an administrator or director. We don’t know whether you’re asking about university-level schooling or some curriculum that is lower in its educational aspirations.

For that matter “good behavior” and “people skills” are somewhat meaningless terms. I’m told that Heinrich Himmler had pretty good manners and was sometimes fun at parties, and Hitler of course (not to bring Godwin’s Law into this discussion) obviously had a fair grasp of “people skills”. (It’s worth noting that many sociopaths display great “behavior” and “people skills” to groups of people, and only privately reveal themselves to their victims.)

It also depends on who is doing the evaluation. George Washington had a price on his head for “bad behavior” during the American Revolutionary War, but he is revered in this country quite explicitly for his “good behavior”.

So I’m still going with “communication” here, with an aim toward “understanding”. That applies to the listener as well, to “receive and acknowledge” communication and attempt to understand the message. Fortunately, Fluther is a pretty easy grader and you can repeat the test/s any number of times, so please do carry on.

From one to ten, a nine.