Tag Archive for ‘21st century skills’ at The Core Knowledge Blog

Tag Archive for '21st century skills'

21st Century Skills Comes to Springfield Elementary

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 7, 2009 in Education News. 8 Comments

If the Simpsons parody a trend, has it peaked? If so, 21st Century Skills may officially have achieved punchline status. In last Sunday’s episode, a classroom prank backfires; Bart and his classmates get their teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, fired. She’s replaced by a Zachary Vaughn, who announces, ”I just got my masters in education from Tufts University and you are my first class ever!” But, the energetic newbie quickly adds, “why talk when I can text?” He texts the class a homework assignment: “20 minutes of Twittering.” Later, Bart describes his first day with the new teacher

Then Zach Skyped us, live blogged our spelling bee and friended us on Facebook!”

“I thought you were studying the Lincoln Douglas debates,” replies Lisa.

“You mean the L-Man/D-Dog flamewars?”

In another scene, the teacher mocks a student who describes the Monroe Doctrine, noting “Do you mean to tell me you memorized that fact when anyone with a cellphone can find it out in 30 seconds?”

“I’ve crammed my head full of garbage!” the distraught student moans.

“Yes, you have,” says Zach, who also describes Mrs Krabappel’s smiley face stickers on graded papers as “caveman kudos.” Naturally, he texts smileys instead.

Tellingly, the rest of the episode involves Bart’s efforts to undo his prank and get his old teacher her job back.

(H/T: Mid-riffs)

Plus ça Change

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 15, 2009 in Education Practice. 5 Comments

Diane Ravitch takes to the op-ed page of the Boston Globe to urge Bay Staters not to be seduced by 21st century skills hucksterism. Her singular contribution to education is historical memory in a field where it’s famously lacking. Whether it’s the “Project Method” of the early 20th century, the “Activity Movement’ of the 20s and 30s, the “Life Adjustment Movement’’ of the 1950s, or “Outcome-Based Education’’ in the 1980s, Ravitch reminds us that we’ve seen this movie before.

None of these initiatives survived. They did have impact, however: They inserted into American education a deeply ingrained suspicion of academic studies and subject matter. For the past century, our schools of education have obsessed over critical-thinking skills, projects, cooperative learning, experiential learning, and so on. But they have paid precious little attention to the disciplinary knowledge that young people need to make sense of the world.

“For over a century we have numbed the brains of teachers with endless blather about process and abstract thinking skills,” Ravitch concludes. ”We have taught them about graphic organizers and Venn diagrams and accountable talk, data-based decision-making, rubrics, and leveled libraries. But we have ignored what matters most. We have neglected to teach them that one cannot think critically without quite a lot of knowledge to think about. Thinking critically involves comparing and contrasting and synthesizing what one has learned. And a great deal of knowledge is necessary before one can begin to reflect on its meaning and look for alternative explanations.”

My neck hurts. Must have injured it nodding vigorously in agreement.

The Partnership for 19th Century Skills

Published by Diane Ravitch on July 6, 2009 in No category. 12 Comments

I for one have heard quite enough about the 21^st century skills that are sweeping the nation. Now, for the first time, children will be taught to think critically (never heard a word about that in the 20^th century, did you?), to work in groups (I remember getting a grade on that very skill when I was in third grade a century ago), to solve problems (a brand new idea in education), and so on.

Let me suggest that it is time to have done with this unnecessary conflict about 21^st century skills. Let us agree that we need all those forenamed skills, plus lots others, in addition to a deep understanding of history, literature, the arts, geography, civics, the sciences, and foreign languages.

But allow me also to propose a new entity that will advance a different set of skills and understandings that are just as important as what are now called 21^st century skills. I propose a Partnership for 19^th Century Skills.

This partnership will advocate for such skills, values, and understandings as:

The love of learning
The pursuit of knowledge
The ability to think for oneself (individualism)
The ability to stand alone against the crowd (courage)
The ability to work persistently at a difficult task until it is finished (industriousness, self-discipline)
The ability to think through the consequences of one’s actions on others (respect for others)
The ability to consider the consequences of one’s actions on one’s well-being (self-respect)
The recognition of higher ends than self-interest (honor)
The ability to comport oneself appropriately in all situations (dignity)
The recognition that civilized society requires certain kinds of behavior by individuals and groups (good manners, civility)
The willingness to ask questions when puzzled (curiosity)
The readiness to dream about other worlds, other ways of doing things (imagination)
The ability to believe that one can improve one’s life and the lives of others (optimism)
The ability to believe in principles larger than one’s own self-interest (idealism)
The ability to speak well and write grammatically, using standard English

I invite readers to submit other 19^th century skills that we should cultivate assiduously among the rising generation, on the belief that doing so will lead to happier lives and a better world.

(Ed’s Note: Diane Ravitch wrote the above for the blog of Common Core, which advocates for comprehensive education in the liberal arts and sciences. She is the organization’s co-chair. It is published here as well, with her permission.)

Time On-Text

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 19, 2009 in Students. 0 Comments

American teenagers pound out an extraordinary number of text messages. We knew this. But a poll reported by USA Today indicates that one-fourth of their texts are sent during class, despite widespread cellphone bans.

The survey of 1,013 teens — 84% of whom have cellphones — also shows that a significant number have stored information on a cellphone to look at during a test or have texted friends about answers. More than half of all students say people at their school have done the same. Only about half of teens say either of the practices is a “serious offense,” suggesting that students may have developed different personal standards about handwritten information vs. material stored on cellphones, says pollster Joel Benenson.

Serious offense? Haven’t you heard? Using technology to get answers isn’t cheating. Dude, it’s a 21st-freakin’-century skill!

USA Today’s Greg Toppo notes the poll’s reported average of 440 text messages a week on average — 110 of them during class–works out to more than three texts per class period. “The findings also reveal a split in perception between teens and parents: Only 23% of parents whose children have cellphones think they are using them at school; 65% of students say they do,” he reports.

In Defense of the Liberal Arts

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 21, 2009 in Higher Education. 16 Comments

Less than 10% of college degrees are now being awarded in the Humanities, but former Semiotics major Lane Wallace, a writer and editor for Flying magazine, passionately disagrees with those who would deride a liberal arts education as impractical. Writing in The Atlantic, she describes an epiphany that came when she took a leave of absence from Brown to travel, and found herself working in a corrugated cardboard factory in New Zealand.

In a flash, I grasped the true value of a college degree. It didn’t matter what I majored in. It didn’t even matter all that much what my grades were. What mattered was that I got that rectangular piece of paper that said, “Lane Wallace never has to work in a corrugated cardboard factory again.” A piece of paper that was proof to any potential future employer that I could stick with a project and complete it successfully, even if parts of it weren’t all that much fun. A piece of paper that said I had learned how to process an overload of information, prioritize, sort through it intelligently, and distill all that into a coherent end product … all while coping with stress and deadlines without imploding.

In an increasingly global economy, Wallace writes, more than just technical skill is required. “Far more challenging is the ability to work with a multitude of viewpoints and cultures. And the liberal arts are particularly good at teaching how different arguments on the same point can be equally valid, depending on what presumptions or values you bring to the subject,” she concludes.

Wallace’s biggest accomplishment, however, is to have mounted a smart and spirited defense of liberal arts education without once using the words “skills,” “century,” or “21st,” or combining them in the same sentence.

A grateful nation thanks her. Liberally.

Alfie Kohn on 21st Century Skills

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 6, 2009 in Education News. 4 Comments

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The Slippery Slope of “Content”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 30, 2009 in Education Theory and Opinion. 9 Comments

The 21st Century Skills debate is back on again. Lynne Munson of Common Core caused a ruckus at a P21 event at the NEA last week. That sparked a response by Paige Kuni of Intel, who chairs the P21 board, over at Flypaper. I won’t rehash the debate, but reading it and thinking about the ongoing dustup prompted a flashback.

Back when the World Wide Web was the Next Big Thing, I worked at TIME Magazine when it became the first major magazine to make its complete contents available each week on a then little-known service called America Online. The project was regarded within the House the Luce Built with anything from amusement to irritation. Those of us who were mixing it up online with readers were dismissed by some ink-stained colleagues as wasting our time on a fad, one that had more in common with CB radio than publishing. But one criticism had merit then and still rings in my ears today. It bothered many reporters and writers that we referred to their magazine pieces as “content.” The very word connoted a commodity, something cheaply made, processed and packaged, sold by the ton and shipped in containers.

So it is with P21. I’ve come to conclude that they are genuinely bewildered by those of us who complain they are soft on rigor and academics. Ken Kay and Co., I think, earnestly believe that they support “world class skills and world class content.” But it’s the word content that causes the disconnect. By referring to history, art, science, math, and literature as “content,” it seems to betray an orientation that dismisses the best of our accumulated knowledge, thought and expression as simply a bunch of stuff. P21 is by no means alone in this. Lots of people who favors a rigorous curriculum throw the word content around as convenient shorthand, present company included.

Many of my erstwhile print colleagues adamantly — and in retrospect, correctly — refused to see themselves as “content providers.” They were White House correspondents, investigative reporters, bureau chiefs, editors, writers and photojournalists. They were probably right, even as they ended up on the wrong side of history. One of the problems bedeviling print media today is precisely that newspapers and magazines have allowed themselves to become commoditized. The reader doesn’t see the value (and doesn’t want to pay) for commodity news, cheaply available everywhere. There’s a lesson in here for education somewhere. It concerns who we are, what we do, and what–if we’re not thoughtful–we will allow ourselves to become.

Over in the comments sections in Flypaper, Diana Senechal responding to Paige Kuni, nails the reductive nature of viewing everything as content.

“I question the value of the sort of analogies you describe. The life cycle of the butterfly is fascinating in itself. The transformation from egg to butterfly is not just a story of “success”—it has intricate processes and startling beauty. There is no need to make superficial analogies with business. There is much of interest right here, in the subject, and it becomes more interesting with deeper study….Making connections is very important, but we have to be judicious about the kind of connections we make, lest we trivialize the subject. I am not a biologist, but I believe many a biologist would agree.

Biology teachers, who clearly see themselves as teaching science not content, would doubtless agree too. Indeed, I doubt there are too many great teachers who view what they do in class as teaching “content.” Those of us who worry that a skills orientation dulls academics need to find a better word to describe what we value if we want others to prize it as highly as we do.

21st Century Skills vs. Core Knowledge and Classical Education

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 15, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Curriculum. 12 Comments

Dr. Florian Hild, principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colorado, posted the following remarks yesterday in the discussion thread of P21 Still Doesn’t Get It. It’s well worth posting and reading his remarks in full. Ridgeview uses the Core Knowledge curriculum from K-8, and an advanced liberal arts curriculum in its high school. US News and World Report recently ranked Ridgeview Classical Schools’ High School #15 in the country, as well as the #4 open-enrollment school and the #4 charter school. His comments are an eloquent call for resisting the lure of the new and seemingly urgent for the sake of the tried, true and timeless.

“One of the flavors du jour of the current education debate is “21st century skills.” Websites and bestsellers are devoted to it, our district creates one 21st century skills committee after another, and no conversation about education can take place without addressing the seemingly new and pressing needs of the “flat world” in the 21st century.

“Should primary and secondary education in the 21st century really change because the world economy seems to have changed? Doesn’t the world economy always change? Does our century not need women as eloquent as Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen, men as resourceful and civic-minded as Aeneas and Benjamin Franklin, creative forces like Beethoven and Da Vinci, men and women with the wisdom of a Jesus or Socrates? Has human nature itself undergone a change on Y2K? Are we suggesting that standing on the shoulders of a Newton or Darwin is not good enough for today’s young scientists? Would we reject a young person applying for a job or college today if he had the political acumen of James Madison, the integrity of Abraham Lincoln, the passion and commitment of Jane Goodall? I am certain that business owners and colleges would not turn down this applicant. I am equally certain that what we primarily need from our graduates in 2009 is the same that we always needed: intelligence and character.

“Maybe this latter claim suggests the difference between classical and so-called 21st century education. I’d submit that Core Knowledge and Classical Education alike are trying to prepare students for any century: we think that being intelligent and of good character is the best preparation for life, regardless of when and where we live. We don’t doubt that the challenges of today’s world are different than those of the 17th century. However, the erudition, eloquence, and integrity of a John Milton will still serve us well today. The ability to outmaneuver others on one’s Blackberry, though, will ultimately not provide a lasting competitive advantage, not to speak of a happy and good life. If we are afraid of the challenges of a new century, I’d say that the best way to prepare us for them is to face them standing on the shoulders of giants. Then even gigantic problems can be confronted and dealt with.”

Thermopylae, Agincourt and….21st Century Skills?!?!?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on March 5, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Education News. 5 Comments

Greg Toppo of USA Today and Eduflack wander into the 21st Century Skills debate this morning. Eduflack gets to the heart of the false dichotomy in the skills vs. content idea, noting “this isn’t core knowledge versus soft skills. No, our focus should be on how we teach those core subjects that are necessary…And most importantly, how do we ensure all students are graduating with the content knowledge and skills needed to truly achieve in the 21st century economy?”

Hear, hear. But then Eduflack drops in this observation about the deeply funded and broadly-backed movement:

If anything, 21CS is guilty of bad messaging and bad PR. In a time when everyone is concerned about both academic quality and relevance to the economy, many 21CS advocates remain focused on the need for soft skills, believing they have discovered some long, lost map to student success. In reality, they are calling for a reinforcement of the relevance of core instruction. Their message has been off, and as a result, they’ve painted a nice, large target on the back of a well-meaning concept.

I’m not sure P21’s ”message” is off. They’ve articulated worthwhile goals, but have loopy ideas on how to achieve them, and now they’ve been called on it. That’s not a message problem–it’s a product problem. That said, let’s not list the Battle of 21st Century Skills alongside Agincourt and Thermopylae quite yet. A thoughtful discussion has emerged about the best way to achieve 21CS. And that’s a good and important accomplishment. Up until now, as Toppo writes, “if someone told you that kids need to think critically and creatively, be technologically savvy and work well with others, you’d nod in agreement, right?”

But a small group of outspoken education scholars is challenging that assumption, saying the push for 21st-century skills is taking a dangerous bite out of precious classroom time that could be better spent learning deep, essential content. For the first time since the P21 push began five years ago, they’re pushing back.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!

P.S. If you’re wondering why I just quoted an ad for the Playstation 3, count yourself a 21st Century Skills casualty.

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