The question of non-cognitive skills and the “cheetah’s coat” perspective

The most recent scientific debates on teaching and learning challenges grant much attention to training non-cognitive skills, as they are considered more functional than cognitive ones for both effective daily-life management and academic and professional success. However, current theories about non-cognitive skills seem to have failed to recognize how the cognitive/non-cognitive relationship is actually configured. A different configuration of the cognitive/non cognitive relationship is thus needed, one that overcomes the conceptual limits and formative partiality of previous models. This paper proposes a new way of representing this configuration, significantly and effectively conveyed by the pattern of a cheetah’s coat, and a new training approach consistent with this configuration.