WCCS Update

These days it seems I often think about the “21st Century Learner.”  I sit and I wonder.  I ponder on the concept as if it is about people whom I have not yet met, people who will live in a world we strive to be ready for.  But in reality the 21st Century Learners are already here!  And I am deeply concerned about them, and their futures.

Sometimes as I think of this new learner, I am caught off guard by the reality of today in comparison to what I experienced as a youngster.  And, I am perplexed even more deeply with what the future will bring.  I think back to when I was in the first grade and attending school.  We could eat lunch in or out, which meant you either packed or your parents sent money with you and the teachers would just dismiss us, opening the gates of the playground to a small town of few restaurants.  “It is lunch time,” they would announce, and off we would go.  Unbelievable, but true.  Mary Beth was my very best friend and lived two roads east from my home in the country. For the two of us to converse on the phone meant an extra phone charge.  She would call me the night before to inquire if I could go out to lunch the next day.  This was our cue, really.  I wonder now if our parents knew.  She would call.  My mother would say “Well, Mary Beth did call long distance…,” and so on, and I would then be allowed to go out to lunch as a first grader!  A long distance call from two roads away.  It was a big deal for a first grader to even use the phone back then in my house, but not a big deal to be given 25 cents to spend at the local diner for lunch, leaving the playground unaccompanied and unable to tell time.  How did we ever make it back?  And how we were able to buy fries and a coke for 25 cents, 5 cents more if you wanted your coke flavored with vanilla?  Somehow we did it, over and over again, at the tender age of about seven.

Today, children in our elementary schools have cell phones in their back packs, but are escorted to the bathroom in school hallways lined with cameras for security.  They can text message their parents about after school commitments but are going to schools locked with buzzers and intercoms.  Amazing.  Yesterday.  Today. What will tomorrow bring?

I ponder again about the 21st Century Learner.  Did I see him or her in the hallways of our current high school, middle school, or elementary, or working at a computer?  Did I see him today in the coffee shop talking to himself and his laptop?  Oh yes, that’s right, that young man had a projection hanging from his earlobe that was his phone as he sipped his coffee and  was conversing with someone while tapping the keys.  He looked so young, just out of school. In college perhaps?   Who knows?  Are these young students the 21st Century Learners?  Is the coffee shop acquaintance?  Am I?

As I visit schools to see the educational process in action, I see students who are surrounded by and comfortable with technology.  They use computers with ease and traverse communication channels constantly, either scoping the Internet for research or more intently, communicating with friends across the globe in shared projects.  The ongoing influx of information all around them seems effortless, simple, the images constant and moving; their eager eyes taking it all in and responding to a variety of stimuli simultaneously.  Savvy teachers know this and capitalize on it, trying as best they can to stay one step ahead of their students.  Good luck to them with that!  Perhaps it is better to just ask the students instead and see how things work. Instructors need to move from what students already know, to what they want and need to learn via a technology avenue.

So as I ponder about the 21st Century Learner I am reminded that statisticians who study the future tell us we are preparing our youth for jobs that do not even exist today.  We do this by following standards and testing for accountability.  In addition, we must blend in the 21st Century Skills of analytical thinking, researching and evaluating information; collaborating and working as a team member; identifying and solving problems; and communicating ideas among others.  It takes a creative teacher whose role has expanded greatly in today’s classroom to accomplish this. The new teacher role includes being a coach and guide, a facilitator of knowledge that is meaningful, relevant and useful to students, and a role that encourages students to progress and grow.  

Yes, education today is and does have to be, different!  We need to embrace the 21st Century Learner because the time is now!  And, yes, you have met them.  We all have.  They are the students in the classroom, and the teachers.  They are the parents whose jobs include ongoing education.  They are all of us as we embark upon a future that views learning not as the end of the road, but as the beginning.  Technology has changed our world.  The 21st Century Skills help us define this new education in terms to which we can all relate.  Now we just have to keep moving forward!