It’s so chic to be a cynic. Like a satirist, whose sole responsibility is to hold up human folly for ridicule, the cynic has the luxury of perusing just enough information to defend his/her perpetually sardonic “been there, done that, didn’t work” stance. Neither are required to offer alternatives, solutions, or (heaven forbid!) hope.
As a society, we elevate both, especially the cynic, to virtually god-like status. How savvy one must be to criticize so quickly! How brilliant! How erudite!
As I dismount my own bash-on-the-bashers high horse, I’ll concede that Jay Matthews makes some good points.
The “all-at-once syndrome, a common failing of reform movements” is problem. But is the fact that “[i]n this democracy, we never make changes all at once” due to the fact that we shouldn’t? Or simply that we generally can’t? Plenty of businesses, families, churches have pulled together the manpower, mindpower, and resources to make radical changes “all at once.” Just because “we” (and exactly who “we” are is not clear) don’t tend to do it doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be done.
Matthews’ observation that companies who stand to gain lots of money are part of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is also valid. But, to use his own argument, this is nothing new. Whether we’re using chalkboards, overhead projectors, or SMART Boards, we’ll always have vendors wanting to “partner” with us for “mutual” benefit. It seems to me that there’s enough competition between them that product quality will continue going up and prices will continue edging down. When I saw the SMART Board for the first time five years ago, I assumed it would be thousands upon thousands of dollars; thanks to all the “partnerships,” competition had driven the cost down to less than two thousand dollars. A lot of money? Yes. But well within my fundraising capabilities.
But I feel that Matthew is unnecessarily snarky about this whole topic. If I read his personal experience correctly -- a single encounter with what he “now realize[s] were 21st-century skills” -- the fact that he didn’t understand any of what was going on tells us a lot more about him as a learner (who was, self-admittedly, highly distracted at that time in his life) than the course he took. And I have serious doubts as to whether or not this learning experience (which he admits was “a gut, the popular term for a course that required little or no effort”) really qualifies as “21st century skills” in spite of his labeling it such.
If this cheap imitation is what Matthew is holding up as his own personal example of 21st century skills, his credibility is in serious doubt. If a sub-for-hire divided a class into groups, told them to “work together,” and ended the day concluding that “The dummies copied from the smarty -- I’ve proven that cooperative learning doesn’t work!” I doubt Roger and David Johnson would want anything to do with him/her. Similarly, I hope Matthews isn’t holding his breath, waiting to hear the anticipated applause from the “promoters of 21st century skills” for his exemplary final exam.
I am drawn to 21st century skills’ emphasis on “big ideas” and conceptual patterns. I’m currently reading Jim Burke’s What’s the Big Idea? -- Question-Driven Units to Motivate Reading, Writing, and Thinking. As an inductive reasoner, I am very guilty of “teaching” what many students consider unrelated bytes of information; since I naturally synthesize them and find ever-widening concentric circles of meaning, I used to expect everyone to process the same thing. Not so. I’m working on making that “compelling WHY” more clear and also connecting each lesson to the one before and the one after.
Jim Burke writes that each day is like a sentence; each week is like a paragraph; each month is like a chapter; and, ultimately, each year is a book of teaching. He asks whether we are providing graceful transitions/connections between sentences, paragraphs, and chapters to make the whole book unified. I have not done so in the past, but I am working to be more purposeful at this.
I’m also encouraged to see that in at least some “21st century” classrooms, students are encouraged to evaluate the available tools and use what best serves their purpose: Podcast, movie, PowerPoint, or “just” get up and tell the story. The “oldie” option was right there on the list along with the new-fangled possibilities.
Even more impressive was one student, who casually explained, “What I’m doing today is ________ in order to ____________” -- oh, for each and every student to be able to articulate this each and every day!
Matthew needs to listen to the MEC '08 podcast with Chris Johnson; it might broaden his grasp of not only what 21st century skills actually are, but his understanding of how they are inviting schools and teachers to grow.
As an educator, I find the invitation to “play” with new technology initially frightening (what if I break everything?!?) but mostly exciting! PLAY? When was the last time I had a chance to “play”?!? And while I’m sucking oxygen at the thought of making so many mistakes in front of my students (my learning curve is REALLY steep and rocky!) I love the idea that modeling my learning for my students might actually be a method of teaching 21st century skills. I already know that they’ll run to my rescue and celebrate the role reversal as they help me learn things they already know.
(Except, of course, for the handful of cynics who sit in the corner and bash on me for being less brilliant than they. But you already know what I think of cynics!)