Are we Preparing Our Students for the Century?

No one would disagree with the fact that we, educators need to prepare our students for the 21st century of which we are about to finish first decade. Most of us would even be courageous enough to claim that we do prepare them for the globalizing world, which is now "flat" as Thomas Friedman puts.

A recent article in Educational Leadership made me re-think they way we educated in our schools and I would respectfully invite you to join me as I go through seven survival skills that schools need to teach to their students to face issues of 21st century. Tony Wagner of Harvard University came up with the seven critical skills that students need upon conversations with hundreds of business, non-profit, philanthropic, and education leaders and visiting many classrooms.


1- Critical thinking and problem solving
"The heart of critical thinking and problem solving is the ability to ask the right questions" is what over and over the executives told Wagner. Ellen Kumata, managing partner at Cambria Associates puts it perfectly that "The challenge is this;how do you do things that have not been done before, where you have to rethink or think anew."

Is it no time to visit your classrooms and observe how much critical thinking and problem solving are happening and how?

2- Collaboration and Leadership
America is unfortunately losing her leadership in the world. Iraq war and mistakes in world politics, economy, loss of jobs overseas, and rising powers in different parts of the world all contribute to the loss of leadership. However, America should not lose that leadership as no other country is in an better position than America due to understanding diversity. Do our schools prepare students who have the ability to influence others in such a fast globalizing world?

3- Agility and Adaptability
The world is changing with an incomprehensible speed with the help of technology. What that means is that problems and solutions also change at the same speed. First of all, where are we with our schools in that process. Do we still live in 90's and what do we do to adapt such rapid change as a school before even thinking about preparing our students for it. I would think that our students are ahead of the schools in adapting to the changes of 21st century.

4- Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
Core of American education is entrepreneurialism and problem solving. However, we are losing that touch due to heavy emphasis on test preparation. You can always find comparisons of education systems in Singapore, Europe, and America and how their children test better than Americans. Ironically though most of the entrepreneurs are Americans. Bill Gates, founders of Google, Youtube, Facebook, and many more are not Singaporeans but Americans.

Most companies are trying to establish an entrepreneurial culture now. First of all, do we ever think about establishing the same culture in our schools, encouraging and even rewarding entrepreneurialism in our schools.

5- Effective Oral and Written Communication
Do our students know how to write and speak with a real voice. It is not necessarily grammar and spelling it is whether students can write and speak precisely and have their own voice. Again, the question is what do we do as educators do to model these qualities to our students.

6- Accessing and Analyzing Information
Employees in 21st century not only face massive amount of information but such information is changing rapidly. Do we teach our students to find the latest information and analyze it?Do our teachers use the latest information in their classes?Are we, educational leaders, are aware of the latest information in education?

7-Curiosity and Imagination
People now want unique products and services. "For businesses it's no longer enough to create a product that is reasonably priced and adequately functional. it must also be beautiful, unique, and meaningful" conveys Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind in the article. We need to educate young people who have the curiosity and imagination that 21st century requires.

I would encourage you to visit classrooms in your school and see if you have classes like these:

It is Algebra II. Teacher writes a problem on the board and turns to students who sit in fours and says "you have not seen this problem before," he explains. "I want you to solve it by using concepts from both Algebra I and Geometry by using at least two different ways." "I will ask a random member from your group come to the board and explain it to the class once you all are done."

It is Chemistry. Students are designing an experiment with chemicals. Instructions are on the board. One group fails to follow instructions and smoke starts exuding out of the tubes upon mixing the chemicals. Do teacher asks the students explain why or he/she instruct students to clean up the tubes and redo it following the instructions on the board.

It is computer. Students are working on developing unique ideas to implement on the Internet using Facebook, Youtube, Ebay, Google as baseline working in teams.

Examples may be multiplied... But the following question can not;

How can we create classrooms like those above if we do not already have them? We are way past the question of "should we?"