Education reform needs to include 21st-century skills required for success
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently released a 45-page plan to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act. Duncan’s focus is on ensuring that all students are prepared for college and a career. The question is, do we know what skills and abilities are necessary for success?
Children once were taught like miniature adults, learning the skills necessary for working in a newly industrialized society. The Child Study movement of the early 20th century began a long tradition of research on how children develop and learn, shifting the curriculum to a more child-centered approach. But when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, proponents of this curriculum were blamed for allowing American students to fall behind the Soviets in academic achievement. As a result, schools went “back to the basics.” Schools rediscovered the integrated curriculum in the 1980s, but education reform at the beginning of the 21st century once again placed an emphasis on student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics.
In Seth Godin’s “Linchpin,” he makes a poignant statement: Being good at school is fine, but only if you intend to be in school forever. In the real world, our careers don’t require homework assignments, answering questions our supervisors already know or regurgitating information on a test. We teach students to follow instructions without explanation and to move on from a topic of interest as soon as it has been “learned.” How relevant are these skills in a world where barriers to accomplishment and innovation are being torn down almost daily?
Can we begin to emphasize more appropriate 21st-century skills in addition to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic? Not easily, but it’s because everyone involved in education — students, teachers, parents and the community — has yet to change their expectations for what children should be learning. Parents still send their children to school expecting them to be taught math, yet in high school we wonder why the numerically challenged are forced to learn calculus. Does anyone need to recall when the Battle of Seven Pines was fought if the answer can be found online in minutes? We should be teaching students to think critically about what they are reading on the Internet or in a book instead of forcing them to memorize dates and names. We’re not willing to let children decide for themselves what they should learn because we think that if given the choice, they will choose video games instead of a study on amphibians. That might be true, but only because we’ve made science class into a practice in flipping through the pages of a textbook to find the answer on a worksheet. Rarely do we expect teachers to be involved in the development of social skills, but the fragmentation of the nuclear family leaves many children without strong, consistent role models.
The White House’s plan undoubtedly will involve more testing and accountability for students and teachers. True education reform, however, calls for a closer look at what the 21st century requires for success, and it’s impossible to measure on a multiple-choice test.
(Originally published in the Zanesville Times Recorder, April 25, 2010.)
