A great emphasis in education these days is the call for “21st Century Skills” to be taught in PreK–12 education. The purpose of this emphasis is to bring curriculum and instruction into alignment and relevance with the environment today’s students will live and work in as adults.
There is no universal agreement on what the list of these skills should include. Googling this hot-button topic reveals a minefield of viewpoints. But here’s a sample:
• The three R’s include: English, reading, or language arts; mathematics; science; foreign languages; civics; government; economics; arts; history; and geography.
• The four C’s include: critical thinking and problem solving; communication, collaboration; and creativity and innovation
(From: Partnership for 21st Century Skills—a collaboration of several major players in government, national education organizations, business, and industry)
Some schools seeking to head in this direction are currently using curriculum and instruction approaches such as the Responsive Classroom approach®, Tools of the Mind®, or Developmental Designs.® These (and other quality programs) teach the integration of social and academic learning through differentiated, theme and project-based instruction with an emphasis on problem-solving. Schools using these programs are already headed in the right direction.
Think critically about what you read in all the treatises and white papers on 21st Century Skills and then line up those concepts next to this list of familiar skills that I’m constantly featuring on this blog:
• Cooperation—the ability to work, learn, evaluate, and accomplish something together with a partner, a family, a teacher, a work group, or a community.
• Assertion—the ability to communicate ideas, suggest solutions, develop a sense of one’s voice in the world.
• Responsibility—the ability to understand and act constructively in relationship to our interdependency in all social, academic, and civic environments.
• Empathy—the ability to see the world from someone else’s perspective and act in response with kindness, respect, and compassion.
• Self-regulation/self-control—the ability to inhibit impulsive action, to calm oneself, to think before taking action, to make a plan, to listen.
These skills are foundational prerequisites for the acquisition of any of the more complex and abstract metacognitive skills being explored as essential in this 21st Century of ours.
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Hey, Tim – Thanks for the heads up. Sounds great. Chip
Hi Chip,
I know that MTV is not known for high standards of broadcasting, but they are currently airing a series that fits right into the concept of “21st Century Skills”. The show is called “If You Really Knew Me” and it deals with high school students hosting a “challenge day” in which students get to know each other better in order to prevent bullying and cliques. To me, this is the Responsive Classroom for high schools. You have to check it out!
Tim Keefe
I love this response! I am going to forward this for possible quotation by RC Central! A long-awaited call from the business sector, indeed! Chip
Thank you, Chip. You put the big picture in smaller chunks, the better to
be digested. Now if only those who need to see this, do see this!
Every time I read, hear, or think about 21st Century Skills I automatically connect to Responsive Classroom. The core skills of the Responsive Classroom approach are at the very heart of 21st Century Skills. Those of us already using RC do not think of 21st Century Skills as an add on, but as a long awaited call from the business sector.