In With The New, Don't Forget The Old

In reading about the 21st Century Skills and their applications in the classroom, I find myself conflicted between the critics and the advocates, and what happens when pure ideology takes over the discussion, and the pedagogical talking heads stop caring about the students and caring more about being right.

It is without question that some of the 21st Century Skills are important to a student's development, and making sure that students can think critically and are learning skills and having experiences in the classroom that prepare them for future careers and "the real world."While this is great in science in mathematics where students can use graphs and do hands-on science experiments, or even in the video we watched last week where the students could go out to the abandoned river bed and solve problems. In the social sciences field these kinds of skills are, in my view, hard to translate, and fail to address and very serious and pressing concern that was raised in the all the critical articles of 21st Century Skills.

While critical thinking and practical skills are important in education, it cannot exist and thrive without the backbone of knowledge to support it. In particular, the Ravitch article perfectly demonstrates this idea, and presents a situation where knowledge is sacrificed for skills in the classroom. She talks about the inevitability of the social sciences being pushed to the sides, and being marginalized in the 21st Century world. The Willingham article article also works partly on this idea, operating on the assumption that knowledge and skills are separate. This kind of thinking is just as flawed as saying that only knowledge or skills is needed in the classroom. I used a quote in my last blog post referring to facts as empty sacks, and that we use our own views and education to fill them with meaning. Based on what I've heard and read in the articles, 21st Century Skills are all about moving forward and looking to the future, but as a student of history, I can say safely this is the wrong way to approach education.

Though cliche, the quote "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is relevant here. While we can't constantly be looking to our past to illuminate our futures, the important thing to remember is that for hundreds of years the way people learned was through memorization and retention of facts, and there's something to the fact that it was used for so long. When I was in AP US History, my teacher, the man who became my mentor and the reason I'm studying history education, opened his class with one very important idea. In order to consider the present implications, or do academic research of any kind, and even in the real world to think for yourself as a member of society, you MUST know your facts. History is about making connections and conclusions as it relates to you, and contributes to your own personal story, but you must know the names and the dates and the facts and the dead people before you can back up your answer.

How does this relate to the 21st Century Skills? Simply put, experience can't thrive without knowledge. To place all the emphasis on one over the other cheapens the education process, and essentially defeats the purpose of having school in its curent state. As more and more state and federal regulations strive to regiment and "reform" education on the whole, the question must be asked, is this in the student's best interest? Is the president consulting the average teacher, and numerous teachers, to help guide his reform policy, or his he listening to people like those who head the NEA, who have said on numerous occasions they don't care about the students, and only about their own agendas and interests. Like anything that appears to come from talking heads or mouthpieces serving to accomplish an agenda, I have my share of skepticism and apprehension of whether these ideas can be put into my own classroom. WHile I will work to operate within core content standards, my classroom will be a place that focuses now only on knowledge but experience, taking the facts and having them form ideas, conclusions, and to create a body of students that can become intelligent, curious, and thinking members of our society.