Week 6: The 21st Century Skills Debate and Schools Kill Creativity

"I'm kind oF A big Deal" is a shirt 21st century skills would not wear because the importance of 21st century skills are in fact a big deal and far from a fad. All of the articles had a great deal of value in each of them and the one I enjoyed the most was The Value of Teaching 21st century skills from The Boston Globe. I strongly agree that the skills are extremely important to be taught and will only become out of date if someday we do not use these specific skills anymore. One of my favorite lines from the article is "That is why the debate over the value of teaching students so-called 21st century skills is baffling" I would prefer to use the word "comical" but baffling will do. If you think about it, because I know I have pretty much all the jobs I had since I graduated from college had nothing to do with what I learned in college. My game design position was from the 15 years I played card games. My position at the start-up company came from my entrepreneurial experience I gathered through out the years of coming up with ideas and trying them. Then finally my position as a financial adviser I just fell into and pretty much no direct skills from college I carried over to it, even though I took many finance classes.

The simple fact is that for people to progress and learn things relevant the topics that are being taught always need to change.

So sure if the question at hand is are 21st century skills important to teach, and the answer in the 21st century is of course "Yes". I think overall teaching is on the right track since this is coming to notice. There are a few things that I might not agree so heavily with, for example state testing, since most of the exams given are not related to 21st century skills.

In the video Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity the point he is trying to get across is that schools are teaching kids not to make mistakes and is taking away the confidence from the kids to try new things. I agree with his point, but on a different level. I truly believe that it is more than just schools doing it, it is society. If there is one thing I never cared about it is what society says. If everyone is going out to the bar on a Saturday to get drunk and I want to go to a friends house to play a game, that is what I am going to do. Because it's not about killing the creativity from kids it's that people are scared to be wrong and if society tells them to the bar then they're going do it. I think the people who are creative and are not to afraid to be wrong, also need to have good morals and understand how to learn and listen. Many do not and they become either social outcasts or criminals, so having the teachers teach a certain way is kind of taking a "hedged bet" but either way a teacher can't fully control the outcome of a student.