A quote from the 21st Century Workforce Commission, National Alliance of Business (USA), “The current and future health of America’s 21st Century Economy depends directly on how broadly and deeply Americans reach a new level of literacy—‘21st Century Literacy’—that includes strong academic skills, thinking, reasoning, teamwork skills, and proficiency in using technology”, opens up multiple avenues of thoughts on the need for special skills for the 21st century; and therefore the link to the skills required for the 21st century learner and the 21st century learning environments.
More than two decades into the 21st century, reports are still calling for urgent action to build the capacity of our students who will be the future citizens and the intellectual driving force for advances in all spheres in the digital age.
Human society has witnessed three revolutions down the ages – the agrarian, the industrial and now the digital revolution and each wave has seen a new demand in terms of skill sets required to emerge successful.
To take a milestone example, the birth of the letters of the alphabet, led to a demand for the skill of carving these on stone, which graduated to wielding the quill and pen, progressing into the printing press and finally into the keypad skills. Have we stopped? If one goes by the emerging technological trends, the skills required are only on the rise.
Alvin Tofler in his book The Third Wave talks about every age mandating a skill that was demanded of its citizens and the digital age is no different as far as technological skills are concerned.
Among the growing number of business leaders, politicians and educators buzzing about the “21st Century Skills” required of students, “if they have to be successful in the digital age” the ‘Partnership for 21st Century Skills’, (based in the U.S), has developed a vision and a framework for student success in the new global economy. This framework presents a holistic view of 21st century teaching focusing on the support systems required for 21st century student outcomes that are multi-dimensional. It calls for building within the context of core knowledge essential skills for success in today’s world, such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration. While advocating the mastery of core subjects (English, Reading or Language Arts, World Languages, Arts, Mathematics, Economics, Science, Geography, History, Government and Civics) it makes weaving in of the 21st century themes essential to student success to promote an understanding of the core content at higher levels on 21st century interdisciplinary themes such as Global Awareness, Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial Literacy, Civic Literacy, Health Literacy and Environmental Literacy into the core subjects.
Learning for the 21st Century (http://www.p21.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf) is a report and mile guide (2003) that provides recommendations based on 6 key elements of 21st century learning. Interestingly, this report; designed to promote a national dialogue about 21st century skills, comes from a private-public partnership between major technology companies, the U.S Department of Education and the National Education Association that in turn consulted with leading U.S educators, researchers and organizations such as the National School Boards Association, National Coalition of Technology in Education and others. The chapter The Six Key Elements of 21st Century Learning ( ref. explanation within the box), in the report acknowledges the importance of traditional core subjects but expands them with missing elements that make the core subjects relevant to the world in which students live and eventually may work. These six elements form the “Bridge to 21st Century Learning.” In this section “Media literacy” is clearly named as one of the higher-order skills that are fundamental to success in the 21st century.
This is a watershed century which is one of information overload and information infinity access as well as rapid changes in technology tools. The levels of tech upgrades have been increasingly higher and complex, taking opportunities to collaborate and make individual contributions to unprecedented levels never before seen in human history, calling for Information, Media and Technology Skills wherein students must develop a range of functional and critical thinking skills in areas such as Information Literacy, Media Literacy and Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) Literacy.
With such seminal changes taking place in both life and work environments, it is definitely not too ambitious to also mandate Life and Career Skills which are more than just thinking skills and content knowledge. These skills focus on the ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requiring Flexibility and Adaptability, Initiative and Self Direction, Social and Cross-Cultural Skills, Productivity and Accountability and Leadership and Responsibility.
Education in India, historically had the core aspects of education with a strong focus on emotional and spiritual intelligence/quotient, but minus the technology aspect from the times of the Gurukul during the Vedic times. But down the ages, certain key aspects took a back seat culminating with the run for the creation of a literate population that could read and write English during the Colonial times, with the introduction of the English system of education in India. That we are reaping the benefits of this move in the digital age and have become an outsourcing paradise solely due to a large mass of population knowing English; and another mass that has IT knowledge is a different story, but the fact remains that the factory model of education has been by and large the most popular model in the last couple of centuries in India.
There is a deep learning for us today, as educators standing at the crossroads of reforms and sweeping changes in this landscape of education. This mandates that the factory model give way to classrooms that are centers of learning. This should be the essential building block for our schools. Recall a typical classroom in any Indian curriculum school, what it looks like as well as the teaching learning transaction going on inside. At the same time consider the changing expectations of work, society and technology and think about what ‘success’ will mean for a student in the current century. How much of the traditional skills taught in the factory model schools will allow these students to become vibrant, capable and connected members of society in the years to come? If the description of the skill sets required and the recommendations for 21st classrooms are anything to go by, our current modes of schooling are success recipes for leaving all children behind!
The world today is divided between educators who are ‘digital immigrants’ and children who are ‘digital natives’. Teachers are working with students whose entire lives are surrounded by the 21st century media culture. Students today learn digitally who absorb the world around through cellular phones, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, laptops, TVs, and game consoles. It is no surprise that Kindergarten students easily navigate electronic, multimedia resources through which they learn.
Several questions come to mind. Are our children getting authentic opportunities for mastery of both content skills and the 21st century skills of collaboration, presentation, written communication? Critical thinking, work ethic, creativity, project management etc., besides knowledge and application of technology or are they using technologies merely to harvest the information overload available, and present?
Are our children self-directed and collaborating in work, engaged in short and long term projects with their peers? Are they busy collaborating, discussing, presenting or are they just listening to the teacher?
Surveys and studies have revealed that although today’s students understand how to access and utilize tech tools, but most of them are used only for entertainment purposes and in that sense children are not truly media literate, whereas media literacy skills calls for functioning at a higher level in a technology based collaborative and research based environment to research, analyze, synthesize critique, evaluate and create new knowledge.
In the scenario outlined above that calls for 21st century skills, should there be new definitions for the words such as ‘school’, ‘teacher’, ‘learner’ ‘curriculum’ and should education be restructured? We need to ask ourselves if we have the courage to abandon the textbook-driven system that is teacher centric and guided by summative assessments or can we explore the legacy of the ancient system of education that worked on the ideas of Gurukuls being nerve centres in learning spaces without walls and without textbooks that engaged the learner and maintained student interest through a ‘culture of inquiry’, by instilling the spirit of curiosity to explore and link discoveries to life and life skills through a flexible plan for learning and assessment for each child to accommodate the interests, learning intelligence of each child keeping in mind the learners profile of each child.
Differentiated Learning and Formative Assessment are fashionable vocabulary today, but its practice is ancient. To go back to these ancient practices, calls for courage to change and move to active learning with a real focus on understanding of self and the world, rather than merely paying lip service.
Technology enabled media heavily invested in the internet access through various devices are critical and important for 21st century teaching and learning. However, there are learning skills that have nothing to do with technology.
A curriculum may be made interdisciplinary, project-based or research driven to incorporate higher order thinking skills, and multiple intelligences, with differentiation in place perhaps using technology for greater enhancement and ease and textbooks reduced to being only one of the many resources.
This may also enable that content and basic skills are applied within the context of the curriculum, and assessment moves from testing of memorized facts to demonstration of understanding through application in a variety of contexts. With all of the above in place, it is presumed that it will be possible to ensure that 21st century skills are nurtured to enable students face the complexities of 21st century life.
However, the most critical skill by and large needed for the 21st century will be that of possessing a very high level of self-awareness which would contribute to individuals managing their minds and emotions. In a technology driven world focus on developing strong emotional and spiritual quotients would be required to make certain that these vital skills do not get behind while all attention is focused on the requisite ‘listed’ 21st century skills.
The world today is in a vortex of emotions and resultant scenarios are words on the wall for every alert educationist. While technology driven and related skills are a must for the 21st century, there can be no negotiation on nurturing the emotional and spiritual quotient which is the only ingredient required in large doses to enable a peaceful world.
Let the clarion call be heard by every sensitive educationist, as it is high time that greater emphasis is laid on spiritual literacy with deeper understanding of the workings of the mind to enable insightful exploration into the vast vistas of the inner landscape.
Such an exploration unrestricted by manmade boundaries of religion, geographical location, gender or economic status will be the defining strength and skill which will facilitate our students to face the challenges of the ‘complex’ 21st century.
Dr. Farooq Ahmad Wasil, a published author, and an educationist, is Consultant and Advisor, to TSPL (Thinksite Services Private Limited).
He has over 3 decades of experience in the field of Education Management – setting up, operating and managing schools.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.