Overcoming Educational Obstacles to the Achievement of the Future Special Operator Concept
(Room S320D)
28 Nov 17
4:00 PM
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4:30 PM
USSOCOM’s Future Special Operations Forces (SOF) Operator Concept analyzes the competencies that will be expected of SOF decades into the future, and in it great care has been taken to consider “horizontal competencies” which comprise the development of new skills. However, the integration of knowledge, skills, and abilities over time as well as the development of “vertical competencies” – which equate to the expansion of cognitive capacities – has been less-well considered.
This paper discusses three educational pathways that, taken together, could enable a SOF operator to achieve a significant level of cognitive growth and social learning across the arc of his career via: (1) instruction that utilizes educational methods and techniques which increase transfer, the application of formal learning to many different situations in the field, (2) approaches that foster communities of practice, a key source of knowledge for honing one’s tradecraft, and (3) more rigorous language and cultural training to support the development of fluent bilingualism, an area which shows potential for enhancing cognitive flexibility and creativity in individuals.
This paper presents a case for the idea that given the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) nature of today’s operational environment, it is essential for leaders of the uniformed services and SOF to better understand educational pathways capable of increasing the cognitive capacities of service members in addition to factors that inhibit learning.