21st Century Skills: A Fad or the Key to Reform?

Are 21st century skills a fad or the key to educational reform? I cannot go as far to say that they are the key, but I do support the use of critical thinking, collaboration, and teamwork in the classroom. The integration of 21^st century skills in the classroom cannot happen overnight, there must be adequate preparation by educators to learn how to incorporate these skills into their classrooms. As the article The Latest Doomed Petagological Fad stated. “It takes hard work to teach this stuff, even harder work, by poorly motivated adolescents to learn it.” Teachers must be taught how to accurately use these skills in their classrooms. They must be given examples of projects and lesson plans that incorporate 21^st century skills. In addition, I do not believe that all lessons should revolve around 21^st century skills, start with one or two a week, this way teachers are able to evaluate the lessons and compare them with their traditional lessons. As the article Flawed Assumptions Undergird the Program at the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills stated “Start small and see if it works—and note that ‘see if it works’ means that you need to have a meaningful assessment plan in place before you start.” 21^st century skills have a place in the classroom, but there are steps to getting them there, and they aren’t giant leaps, but baby steps.

Teachers that have used 21^st century skills in their classrooms say that the results are positive. They even raise test scores as the article 21^st Century Skills: Will Our Students be Prepared noted, “According to a number of researchers 21^st century learning experiences commonly do translate to higher test scores.” 21^st century skills allow students to tap into a new way of learning and expand their mind to reach new arenas. “Our role now as policy makers, educators, business leaders, and parents” The article The Value of Teaching 21^st Century Skills noted, “…is to provide students with the best of both worlds: a strong and challenging academic curriculum, and a full infusion of the 21st-century skills students will need to succeed outside of high school.” 21^st century skills can be important tools in the classroom if they are used correctly. Teachers must learn how to teach them and students must learn how to learn from them. Another important element for students is to see how these skills will help them later in life. According to the article Work Force Readiness Crisis, “…employers place much greater value on the applied skills of leadership, critical thinking, and problem-solving than on more traditional basic skills such as reading comprehension or mathematics.” If students are able to see that acquiring these skills will not only help them in high school and college, but also in the real world they will hopefully be much more open to them.

But as I said earlier, baby steps. As the article Schools Tap ‘21^st Century Skills’ noted, “The challenge for schools is to find ways to shift from traditional rote learning and teach these skills.” Schools must find a way to make the shift in a way that is comfortable for both the teachers and the students. It is not only how you teach 21^st century skills but also how you go about it.