"What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skills" video

I liked what Grant Lichtman said about change..that everybody tells him ‘change is hard’ but change is not hard. Raising children in poverty is hard, patrolling the Khandahar desert is hard, and going to the moon is hard. Change is uncomfortable, messy and unfamiliar.

Grant summarizes 21st Century teaching skills:

• ·       Adaptive, permeable (like Blooms taxonomy), cross subject boundaries
• ·       Relevant, authentic, engaging
• ·       Self-correcting, reflecting
• ·       Involves creative spaces for thinking, designing
• ·       Dynamic and cross global networks (cognitosphere)

The industrial model of teaching was contained, predictable, scalable and controlled.

Some obstacles to 21st century teaching/learning:

• ·       Anchors  (ego, control, My time, My space, My subject)
• ·       Dams   ( tertiary requirements, content rather than context)
• ·       Silos   (class/dept/schools that keep us from collaborating)

Reflection on how 20th century and 21st century skills differ? Do we need both?

20^th Century skills were more about learning skills to work in an industry (factual or procedural knowledge) or to acquire knowledge to help others or pass on to others. Professions like doctors and lawyers held knowledge that was not accessible to most people. Teachers were expected to pass on knowledge to their students and students were tested to see how well they had memorised material.

In the 20th century people stayed in one job or profession for many years, perhaps all their working life. Some professions were even handed down from father to son. My great grandfather came to NZ from England to start an optometrist company. His three sons continued in the business and opened companies in Auckland, Palmerston North and Christchurch where they worked all their lives.

In the 21^st century people need to be more adaptable. Job situations change very quickly. Just this week NZ Post announced they will be cutting another 500 jobs.

For the first half of the 20^th century school education was mostly about the three R’s and learning to show respect to your teachers. I would like to think that from the 1970’s on we were thinking more about  Treaty implications, causes, creativity, collaboration and higher order thinking.

Blooms taxonomy was created in 1956 so hopefully we have had at least 20 or 30 years of promoting higher forms of thinking in education in the 20^th century.

I think most workplace jobs have always involved communication such as communication between the architect and draughtsman and builders and clients. There is more collaboration required today though. Offices have less divisions, and projects are more often managed by a team. The value of collaboration is recognised so that when people build on each other’s ideas the final product is better that what any one person could contribute.

Values such as respect and honesty were part of education in the 20^th century and are still an important part of education today. Children were expected to work hard in school or receive a punishment but today students are encouraged to work on self-management skills.

Real world problems were part of the curriculum in the 20^th century. I can remember going out to study mangroves and learning about the way they aerate the mudflats. Obviously many of the population of Mangawhai didn’t learn that because this year large sections of mangroves have been cleared in the estuary. I’m not sure if that is the fault of the older or younger generation of educators?

Today there is more emphasis on authentic learning and real world problems which makes the learning more engaging and ‘sticky’. We also have the means today to communicate far and wide, take virtual tours of the Antarctic or find real world statistics more easily.

There are some skills that remain the same for both the 20^th and 21^st century. These are often referred to as soft skills that employers look for such as a solid work ethic, a person who is positive, self-motivated, organised, a communicator, and a person who can work under pressure.