1. 2.
What do schools need to do to prepare students for the 21st Century? Discuss your
opinions.
As educators, we constantly strive to prepare our students for the ‘real world’ that
exists around them. We teach them how to read, write, and calculate. Then, of course, there
are the less tangible skills we teach; such as how to work in a team, think critically, and be
curious about the things they encounter each day.
We want to prepare them to lead productive and successful lives once they leave us
and enter into the realm of adulthood. But what lies ahead for our students in the future? Did
educators of twenty years ago know that so much of our world would be based on computers
and technology now? Could they have known what skills would be needed in the job market
today? Unlikely, but yet they had to do their best to prepare their students for this world
anyhow. Nowadays, educators are still charged with the same complicated task – preparing
students for the unknown.
Tony Wagner of Harvard University worked to uncover the 7 survival skills required
for the 21st century. To accomplish this, hundreds of CEOs in business, non-profits and
educational institutions were interviewed. A list of seven skills that people will need to
survive and thrive in the 21st century was compiled from their answers.
We may not know exactly what lies ahead for our students in the future, but we have the
advantage of knowing what skills they will need once they get there. Here are the 7 survival
skills of the 21st century, along with how they may look being purposefully applied in a
classroom.
Skills: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Preparation: Students will need to develop their skills at seeing problems from different
angles and formulating their own solutions. Regardless of the field they choose to enter for
their careers, the ability to think and act quickly is an indispensable tool for the future. To
practice this, teachers should present students with situations in which they need to figure
things out for themselves – where skills that they have already developed can be drawn upon
and applied to help them figure out a problem.
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2. However, the ability to lead others can definitely help a person to advance and
become successful in their chosen career. Also, finding a job where you don’t need to be able
to work closely and harmoniously with others can be quite a difficult task. To best prepare
students in this area, more than just the typical teamwork is required. Instead of simply
getting into a group and splitting the tasks with each other, students should instead be
encouraged to take on different roles within their group for each task within the project.
Sometimes they can be the ‘manager’ and at other times they can be an ‘organizer’ or
a ‘graphic designer’. There are many different roles that students can fill during a project with
their peers that allow them to work with others in a more collaborative way than just breaking
apart a project and then putting it back together in the end.
The problem should ideally lend itself to multiple solutions, as we do not want to
teach students that there is only one answer available, but instead that problem-solving can be
a creative and personal experience. Situational problems in mathematics provide a good
example of these skills at work.
Skills: Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
Preparation: Not every person is born a natural leader. Skills: Agility and Adaptability
Preparation: If we look back at the last twenty years we can see how much has changed in the
workplace and the world.
Our students need to be comfortable with the idea of change and be willing to adapt to
the changes around them. Teachers can create a very dynamic environment within the
classroom that can help to prepare students for the future. Varying the teaching strategies we
use, the setup of the classroom, the ways that learning is demonstrated by students, and even
the guidelines for group work or homework can help students learn to adapt.
Have students create a storyline, for example, then surprise them with a mandatory
element to incorporate, or even have them switch work and complete a task based on the
preparations of another. They might grumble at first, but the skills will serve them well!
Skills: Initiative and Entrepreneurship. Preparation: Students need to be able to take
initiative and contribute to the world. We should encourage these skills within our classrooms
and our communities. Our students can be incredibly creative and interested in shaping their
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3. experience in the classroom, so we can ask them for much more than a list of classroom rules
and consequences.
Let them know that you are available and willing to listen to any of their ideas about
improving the classroom or school. Help them organize their ideas and put them into practice
– even if an idea may fail. It can be a valuable lesson about how to analyze what went wrong
and consider how to improve the idea. Students should never be afraid of trying because they
are afraid of failure.
Skills: Effective Oral and Written Communication
Preparation: Despite advances in technology, these skills never diminish in
importance. Think of a boss or manager sending you an email full of grammatical errors or
presenting a new business plan while speaking too low and reading the entire presentation off
a sheet of paper. What would you honestly think? Consider some of the best communicators
you have seen – what makes them rise above the rest? We need to teach our students how to
speak confidently and clearly.
This doesn’t come naturally, but with practice; enunciation, speed, volume, gestures,
and eye-contact can all be taught and learned. The same skills that help in drama can help in
oral communication. Take a moment one day to begin teaching a lesson in a very ineffective
way and see how long it takes your students to ask what you’re doing… they should be able
to tell you exactly what’s ‘wrong’ with your communication skills! As for written
communication, we need to continue to emphasize the rules while also teaching students how
to use the technology available to them to help check their writing. The difference between
formal and informal writing is quite important for students to learn and start applying.
Skills: Accessing and Analyzing Information
Preparation: Students have access to unimaginable amounts of information today.
The Internet provides an incredible research tool that can be their best friend or worst
enemy. Accessing information is easy, but accessing good information tends to be more
complicated. Students need to be taught how to sift through the millions of web pages
available on a topic and find what they need (and be able to trust what they find). They need
to learn the difference between factual information and factual-sounding opinions.
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4. Many students today will check ‘answer’ websites to gather information, not really
thinking about how the information was written by a person who may or may not be correct
or truly knowledgeable in a subject area. In the same way a teacher can ‘think-aloud’ reading
strategies; we can think-aloud Internet searching strategies. Project your screen on the board
and learn about a topic with your students. Show them how to search, and how to use those
‘answer’ sites without being misled!
Skills: Curiosity and Imagination
Preparation: Our students come to us naturally curious about their world and wanting to
explore it. Their imaginations are vast and untamed, creating endless amounts of practical
and impractical things. Our task as educators has less to do with teaching them how to be
curious and imaginative, and more to do with not taking that away from them. We need to
continue to encourage them to develop these skills, as well as teach them how to apply them
creatively and purposefully. Imagine the little boy who loves soldiers and robots, but hates
princesses.
How do you react when he shows you his freshly-drawn picture of a soldier using a
robot-inspired weapon to destroy a princess? Do you celebrate his creativity in the same way
you celebrate the world-saving-robot drawn by the student next to him? Is his picture hung on
the wall? We don’t all like and appreciate the same things, so an educator must be very
careful about how they nurture and develop their students’ creativity and imagination. We
can teach them which things are appropriate in which situations without making them feel
like their ideas are wrong or bad. Besides, the greatest horror writers have to begin
somewhere!
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