Evaluating 21st Century Skills

After visiting the the Partnership for the 21st Century website, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/, I was able to gain insightful knowledge on ideas and opinions that are occurring around the United States in regards to 21st century education. After browsing through the home page, I immediately went to the mission statement. The mission statement seemed very simplistic and allowed me to further understand the the overall framework and objective of this advocacy group. While I agree that with the idea that there is indeed a gap between the skills that students learn in school and the skills that students need to learn, I feel that more and more schools today are recognizing the importance of infusing 21st century skills into the classrooms.

I was surprised to see the amount of partners that contribute to the overall success of this organization. The amount of money in which these companies possess will truly aid in educating society on the importance of infusing 21st century skills and values into today's school systems. I appreciated the fact that the organization placed great emphasis on learning and thinking skills such as: critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, innovation and information and media literacy skills. While many of our students are familiar with these skills already, it is important for us as educators to continue to infuse these skills into our daily lessons and recognize the importance to which they hold. I also enjoyed the fact that the organization focused on core individual skills such as: leadership, ethics, accountability, personal responsibility and self direction. With such large emphasis placed on test scores, these core values can often be forgotten in the classroom. Many of our students do not receive training at home in regards to these values and must continue to gain an appreciation for them in school. With this in mind, I was surprised to see that so few states have adapted to this organization and agreed to implement these thoughts into their school systems. Hopefully as word gets out and people begin to realize that students should not be labeled as a score but rather as an individual then more and more states will look into making making changes to adapt to the 21st century.

As a contemporary educator, I plan on using this website to stay up to date on the many changes that occur within the education system. I think that it is the responsibility of an educator to teach the child as a whole. Children must learn the core values from their textbook but must also be exposed to and appreciate how to become meaningful and productive members of society.