Staying Power or Passing Fancy?: 21st Century Skills

To summarize briefly the aims of the 21st Century Skills movement, students are to gain preparation for the workplace, civic engagement, and citizenship while also attaining the skills of innovation, self-direction, technology literacy, and global awareness. I think these are all worthy goals, but my question is why do some schools and teachers need to be told to teach these things? It seems to me that in our curricula, school programs, and outside school activities, we should be naturally leading toward these goals.

At our school, one of the most popular things for my students is when we do community service activities in their neighborhoods. Not only does this allow them to give back, but it also exposes them to the need for them to be leaders and become engaged in their own communities. This is something that we as teachers need to take the initiative in introducing because in our current electronic world, it is very easy for students to remain holed up in their home without becoming acquainted with anyone around them.

At the same time, I do agree with some criticisms of the 21st Century Skills movement. I am concerned that the education field seems to find a new "it" program or idea quite often. As a teacher, I sometimes feel like I have whiplash from slamming on the brakes to end one program and then starting to learn a new one that will soon be implemented. Though a main point of contention from the Mathews and Rotherham was the need for content and skills teaching to remain integrated, I do not believe that the 21st Century Skills program was seeking to do such a thing, so this criticism seemed a bit invalid.

However, I did find valid their point that schools seem somewhat disjointed on how to accomplish the goals of this movement. One school created a digital classroom; another introduced several new courses; a third created a community/school interactive forum; a final one changed their instructional program. Schools, especially those in the Adventist system, do not always have the luxury of being able to pull off so many transformational changes at once due to the limits of time, money, staffing, or all three. If all these changes happen too quickly and/or prove unsuccessful, as Mathews and Rotherham suggested, we risk upsetting many teachers, confusing several students, and making the process for change even more difficult.

It seems to me that we in education should already be doing at least some of the things suggested by the 21st Century Skills movement. If we are, then this movement will not be a fad but should become the status quo. But if we are not and we prove too resistant, we may be in deeper trouble than we realized.