You decide.
Did you know that many skills taught in our public schools today are obsolete by graduation?
Did you know that the US Dept of Labor estimates that today’s learners will have between 10 to 14 jobs by age 38?
Did you know that the amount of new technical information doubles every two years?
Educators of today are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented yet, to solve problems we don’t know are problems yet.
To keep up, U.S. education of today must be about adapting to a changing world.
But unfortunately it’s not. Schools in the US by and large still follow a 20th century education model of delivering content. They deliver the same content to a classroom of students with a wide range of skill levels and needs. Students advance from one topic to the next according to the teacher’s lesson plan, whether or not the student has mastered the material. Teachers have little opportunity to grow professionally, because they work in isolation with little time during the school day to plan and develop together.
21st century education must be far more than delivering content. To keep up with a changing world, it must be about learning tools to re-create, analyze, and apply that content.
And the best part is that the children of today love change! They live it and embrace it. They are data oriented. They are digital. They want to learn.
That’s great. But our K-12 public education system is not built for change. And teachers are not being prepared to teach the 21st century learner how to embrace change.
So what would this ideal learning system look like? Check out Thursday’s blogpost to learn more.
