Meeting the needs for 21st Cenury Job Skills

I have spent time this week reviewing many viewpoints and articles regarding the role of education in preparing students for their future, and what types of employment skills they will need to be successful in the workplace of tomorrow.  Focusing on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website, I discovered their mission is to ensure that education in the United State, K-12, has the development of 21st century skills at the core of its purpose and passion. The Partnership works to build understanding and value of these skills among leaders in the fields of education, business, community and government (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.). 

I found their website well organized, visually appealing and containing a wealth of information. The website explains the groups mission, history, members very well.  As I was working my way through the drop-down tabs across the top of their site, however, I found myself feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information available. The Skills Framework graphic (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.) gives a strong visual representation of their beliefs and mission and the important connection between student outcomes and the necessary support systems to achieve these outcomes. 

As I researched the site, I discovered an Arts Map, which was very encouraging to see that fine arts education has value and importance in this framework.  There are maps for all content areas, and as an elementary general music teacher, it is important to me that fine arts is viewed as a content area.  I also appreciated reading the links to what educators, employers and the public is saying about the value of 21st century skills. 

While I did not find anything on the website or in the literature that I disagreed with, I found myself frustrated at what felt like I was reading the same information over and over.  How often do we find that happening in our education professional development?  We hear of a good idea but there is no plan of implementation.  The more I researched and read, the more I found myself feeling this way.  I was looking for more sold implementation strategies on the site than what was offered. 

There is no doubt that the US education system has not kept up with advances in technology.  With a strong focus on assessment and mandated testing in order to provide the public with measurement data on the achievement of schools, we have fallen behind in equipping our students with the more important skills of communication, collaboration, problem solving and creative thinking, or the 4Cs (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.).  It is now more important that ever that teachers update their pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment to better prepare our students for their futures (Laureate Education, n.d.).

References:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/overview

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.) Skills for the 21^st Century. [Video Webcast].

https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_3397675_1%26url%3D