Thinking about the Framework for 21st Century Skills

Now that you have explored the Framework for 21st Century Skills- what are your thoughts?

I have heard it, read it, watched it and I still don't see where these skills are any more 21st Century than they are 20th Century (or 2nd Century for that matter).

I realize I may be committing grade suicide here but I can't help but echo Jay Matthews, the Washington Post education columnist who noted, “The organizations involved in the 21st-century effort are staffed by good people. I am going to assume that we agree that we need to look closely at the details of teaching these skills, and in that spirit I want to make two suggestions.

"First, please try to avoid the lethal disease that infects so many of these studies. I call it All-at-once-itis. That refers to the irresistible urge to insist that the changes have to be accomplished ALL AT ONCE, or we will fall short of our important objectives.

"In this democracy we never make good changes all at once. The presidential campaign and economic crisis are proof of that. So please don't tell us we have to.


"Second -- and this will wreak havoc with report deadlines -- why not wait to release your recommendations until you have tried them out on at least two or three schools with a few hundred students?

"I won't insist on proof of success. I just want to get a sense of how young human beings, and their teachers, react to all these new hoops they must jump through. (This will also help stifle my suspicion that you don't actually know how to do any of the things you are suggesting.)

"No one is going to pay attention to what I want, of course. The report writers know I will keep reading their stuff, full of hope that I will eventually find some classroom reality among all the pie charts.

"I am not saying the people who issue these pronouncements are wrong. Many of their ideas are excellent. But if we are going to make them happen, they have to show us what it is going to take, besides just more concerned citizens spending more money to produce more reports like this one."

Yes, they're phrased and packaged in a contemporary way. The presentations are all very “professional” (which I've found to be the word used when something looks like it wasn't done by an amateur and devoid of any appreciation of content). The urgency of addressing problems has grown exponentially from the 2nd to the 21st Century, certainly. The stakes of making mistakes or not aggressively addressing challenges has certainly grown.

Lest anyone get the opinion that I'm sort of latter-day Luddite, I'll readily grant that Information and Communications Literacy (ICT) is an utterly new construct worthy of separate attention and inclusion in the curriculum.

As the slide says, Use the ICT Literacy Maps for Math, Science, English, Geography, and Social Studies.

As I've commented elsewhere, this should be incorporated at the earliest levels where there is some support for it being effective. It seems this alone would be something quantifiable, easily (or should be easily) communicated to even the most parochial or ignorant school board member, and straightforward in implementation. Pursuing this alone would be a huge leap forward for the American education effort and one that would certainly have payoffs in the workplace.

The Life Skills List continues to bother me.

Why is Personal Responsibility any more important now than it ever has been, for example? Has there ever been a time when personal productivity wasn't important? Seems like a lot of effort went into coming up with this list and it doesn't just resonate with me.

Global awareness is critical, yes, but can't it be incorporated right now? Watching currency exchange rates would be a great way to teach division (dollars to Euros, Euros to dollars, for example) at the lower grades, graphing the changes in exchange rates for higher grades, and analysis of those trends for upper levels of high school. What is it going to cost? Is some principal really going to say “No, don't do that?”