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Basically, the way this shakes out is:
21st century skills, yay or nay
Parents: nay
Unions, ed schools, edu-policy types, and advocacy organizations: yay
Which is pretty much all you need to know about where U.S. students are going to stack up internationally after unions, ed schools, edu-policy types, and advocacy organizations finish infusing 21st century skills into our public schools.
Sauve qui peut.*
* save yourself if you can
8 comments:
From a newspaper story about Everyday Math:
Before we adopted Everyday Math, the local business community told us what students really need are 21st-century skills: problem solving, critical thinking and the ability to work in teams. Knowing basic math skills is critical, but the 21st-century skills are just as important.
Sound of vomiting.
Article is here.
OK, here's a question.
Suppose I don't want my kid to grow up to be a cog in the 21st century hands-on collaborative wheel?
problem solving, critical thinking and the ability to work in teams
question: are there any actual, living members of the local business community actually saying this stuff?
'cause I'm thinking 'no'
your basic member of the local business community is grousing about How come kids don't show up on time for work & How come, when they do, they can't spell
I say from now on, whenever an edu-type cites "members of the local business community," we say, "Who?"
Which members of the local business community exactly?
"Which members of the local business community exactly?"
That was my first thought. I want names. It's local, so I want names.
I guess they haven't read the Reality Check-Public Agenda 2002 article (low quality but free article here). The pertinent passage is "Finding 5" on pages 7-8, and the graph titled "Employers and Professors Remain Dissatisfied With Basic Skills".
"problem solving, critical thinking and the ability to work in teams"
I'm just wondering when these became exclusively 21st century skills. Wouldn't a group of Egyptians engineers trying to figure out how to raise an obelisk 3000 years ago need those skills at least as much as any modern?
[I say from now on, whenever an edu-type cites "members of the local business community," we say, "Who?"]
The business community says... and "Research shows..." are interchangeable phrases that educationists recite by rote.
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