21st Century Skills: Education’s New Cliché

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



21st Century Skills: Education’s New Cliché

Posted on Dec 8, 2009
By Mike Rose


In all the current talk about school reform, there is one phrase that you will hear in every proposal, whether it comes from the president or the local school board. That phrase is 21st century skills. Provide students with 21st century skills for a 21st century economy. The label is a powerful one, heralding a new era, high-tech and prosperous.

But like so much in education reform, an idea that has some merit can quickly get reduced to a cliché. In one document I read, the phrase 21st century skills was repeated 25 times in less than two pages. And once you make your way through the cant, the 21st-century-skills approach has some troubling implications for education.

What are these skills? There are a number of definitions and lists, some running up to nine pages. Here’s a summary drawn from the Southern Regional Education Board. Twenty-first century skills include the ability to use a range of electronic technologies to access, synthesize and apply information. The ability to think critically and creatively and evaluate the products of one’s thinking. The ability to communicate effectively and collaborate with others, particularly in diverse and multicultural settings.

The range of skills is admirable, as is the intention that they apply to all students—an equity imperative. But what’s new about them? They sound like the skills one would have gotten from a good 20th century education—or from a lot further back than that. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/21st_century_skills_educations_new_cliche_20091208/

[yurbud]

1. most of current education reform is about privatizing public education and the rest is smoke and

mirrors.

[Brickbat]

2. They're skills that are easily outsourced.

Huh, imagine that.

[blue97keet]

3. Remember what the skills of the future used to be?, now they are all outsourced.

[OHdem10]

4. In order to induce kids to apply themselves and parents to press their

kids to apply themselves, what is the new motivator.
In years past, jobs that paid high wages were the main
motivation. As wages are being harmonized downward so
that the US is not so out of step with the rest of the
world, it will require some real creativity in selling
Education Policy. Too many regular Americans have seen
jobs either outsourced or relocated overseas in search
of cheap labor for them to get real excited over the
future. How about all the H-1B visas that are used
especially by HI-TECH Companies to bring workers from
overseas to this country. These foreign workers are
paid 1/2 to 1/3 what an American would make. Americans
are laid off, fired, choose your verb.

The DLC always preaches education and they sound as if
operating in the abstract. Conditions on the ground
must be considered.

[Locrian]

5. what we need

Wasn't it Jefferson who said schools should teach us enough of how things really work so WE DON'T GET SCREWED but the people in power?

Meaning enough math to know how not to get conned by a mortgage company, or wall street.
Meaning knowing enough about the constitution and how government (should) work
Meaning knowing how to read and write, and critically think so as to not fall for propaganda and consumer advertising.
Meaning knowing about science (Evolution anyone? Buller? Anyone?) so that you are able to put aside superstition and actually accomplish things that benefit society.
Meaning being versed in arts and literature, so that you are not fodder for the crap the industry shills hawk, and actually turn off the teevee.

Know what I mean?

[vinylsolution]

6. Learn a trade....

.... some guy in China can't fix or replace your broken furnace in 24 hours, can he?

No one seems to want to learn the blue-collar trades any more, although it's still a very lucrative middle-class living for those who do.

Welding, machining, auto technician, plumber, electrician.... there are thousands of skilled trade jobs out there, but kids today seem to want 'glamor jobs' in media and marketing instead.

So put on yer blue overalls, and get yer hands dirty! (and make sure you join your local union, too)

[Demeter]

7. 21st Century's Vital Skills: Scavenging, Doing Without, Making Do

Rebuilding a vital real economy, punishing the criminals in govt. and corporate circles.

[Igel]

8. Nah.

There is a lot of change in the "21st Century Skills" movement.

My mother keeps saying that change is good.

Then she complains how things seemed to get so much worse under Reagan, and then under Bush II.

"So, ma, what you're saying is that things changed."

"Yes. They got worse."

"But, ma, aren't you the one that says, 'Change is good'?"

The movement has some good stuff in it, but mostly it's an attempt to replace discipline with enticement, to replace the motivation to learn that in earlier grades should have been made intrinsic with external motivation because kids aren't really motivated to learn a lot of stuff.

The rest is silly and rightly few schools or teachers stick with the program consistently. Pisses off the zealots, but seriously--a lot of "21st teaching skills" are 2009 skills--will they be useful in 10 years? Some hope so. Some hope not. Best not to bet their futures on your hopes (where "your" is a 3rd person indefinite).

[swilton]

9. I See the Trend

in a very negative way, and is in keeping with a trend in recent years that is a fascination with a sort of anti-intellectual laziness that prefers fast to slow, the simple to the complex and the easy to the hard - where in all of these examples there is value in pursuit of the rigors of careful methodical and creative thinking things through.

Skills are expertise - which easily can become obsolete as technology supercedes the baseline skills one is trained for. Furthermore technology can not only supercede the skills, it can replace them. Aren't most people losing their jobs because their jobs are becoming obsolete as people are replaced by macines.

A more enduring and beneficial goal for educational reform would be a return to the humanities where creative thinking that teaches people to respond to evolving technological change is emphasized. Furthermore, students should not be taught to acquire knowledge as a means to do well on tests and raise aptitude scores but rather they should be taught to love learning and to learn as a means to satisfy intellectual curiosity.

[fasttense]

10. No posts about 21st Century Skills is complete without the mention

of the most important skill our kids must become familiar with.....ringing up a cash register.