Semantics of 21st century learning
What teacher is not in favor of making sure our students graduate with these skills?
• Information and media literacy, communication
• Critical thinking, problem identification, formulation, and solution
• Creativity and intellectual curiosity
• Interpersonal and self-direction skills
• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, and business literacy
• Civic literacy
I think you would be hard-pressed to find any educator who is not hoping for these results for each student’s formal education and personal learning. These skills are not new to the 21st century, but they are the skills that we in the 21st century still struggle to build in all students. I read with great disappointment today about a food-fight occurring between the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and other groups who question P21’s motivations. At the risk of sounding like a seventh grader: Who cares?
As a teacher, I care about what happens when the rubber meets the road (or the index finger meets the mouse): What happens when I try to incorporate these skills into the discipline(s) I teach? Is there one and only one way to align them with existing curriculum? Does current curriculum go away, to be replaced completely (some of it probably could!)? And most important: how can any organization OWN such ideas? These ideas belong to those who grasp them as they learn, not those who describe them, prescribe them, or trademark special names for them.
I think of the old computer simulation game, Civilization, where you had to design a society and set its priorities. Would the poets and artists survive or die off? What happened if you had no thinkers or philosophers? The solution was always balance. You had to have some of everything to help a society endure.
Today’s Civilization is worldwide, and we need all of it. We do not need people fighting over semantics and who owns the important concepts of creativity, global awareness, etc. We certainly don’t need to know which organization is winning the race for the ear of policymakers. Out here in the classrooms of the world, we need to apply OUR 21st century skills of interpersonal and self-direction, critical thinking, problem identification, formulation, and solution to continue evolving as teacher-learners and continue to challenge, inspire, and lure our students to self-directed, meaningful learning that lasts. It would certainly be nice to have the food fight end and the sharing begin. Do you ever wish you could just shake a few business people and politicians?
Unfortunately, the skills we want to actually give is held by about 20% of the population. The other 80% does not have them. I know a lot of people who say they want them, but do not have them themselves (and mostly that means being a lifelong learner.) Negative, I know, bu has become a sobering reality on why change has not occurred.
Comment by Louise Maine — December 5, 2009 @ 7:37 am
Not only would I like to shake politicians and business people…I’d like them to try to work in my world. Under the current budget crisis’ all of education is at risk. Not only are teachers stretched beyond belief but we are constantly being asked to do more and more with less and less. Also, we work in a workd where our students and families cannot keep up with the changing technology either. I’m not sure of the solution but I know that the direction things are heading is not in the best interest of children.
Comment by kristyln — January 10, 2010 @ 12:49 pm