21st Century Skills

I’m skeptical about these high ideals to reorganize education and implement new technology standards. The study, Learning for the 21st Century, seems to put on a pedestal laws like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and state that 21st Century Skills are a complement to this law. It contradicts itself really. On one side this study says that relevance and rigor are what we should teach children according to these new standards, this new learning for the 21st century. On the other hand, NCLB has children doing a scripted reading program where their eyes glaze over at the repetition of the script. It’s scripted, meaning the teacher has a script.
“Teacher says this…”
“Student responds.”
It’s mind numbing. Also, NCLB says that by 2014, seven years from now, every student will be at grade level or above. It sounds nice in theory, but it’s a lie. Plus public schools are currently being punished if the don’t meet their Adequate Yearly Progress. There is no way with the amount of English Language Learners that we have in this state that we will be compliant with this law. Each year more students come that we have to serve. We read in the paper that teacher and principals have been caught cheating on this test. It’s good to measure what students know but do you know how much money is made on these tests? I have one concrete example. Educational Testing Services (ETS) was the company in charge of scoring all the California High School Exit Exam, by the way they were cited in this study. To grade each exam it cost the school $250.00.

But I’ve been in public education ten years. I want to say that I love how equal it is, but it’s not. It’s unequal and in San Francisco at least, it’s pretty segregated. But as always in a school there are a core of really strong teachers. People that, it’s gonna sound cheesy, will make a difference. I look at my students and I know that with relevance, they will try, and they will achieve. We do something called an International Interview Project. My students go out into the community in groups and meet people from different countries and interview them. They come back with an audio sample and edit an audio documentary. They also work with PowerPoint. I try to make this project relevant to them by having them look at the social, economic and political problems within their community and then connecting to those problems elsewhere. We work with a non-profit agency to help us find the interviewees. It’s a beautiful project and it builds the 21st century skills that are addressed in this study. It can be done. But the experts need to look and see what is already being done in the classroom.

I hope I don't sound too cynical.

This just in. I receive a magazine called Education Week's Digital Directions: Trends and Advice for K-12 Technology Leaders. There's an article this issue about the digital divide. One source said, " The digital divide in education has been overshadowed by the federal NCLB and the demands that its accountability requirements have placed on school resources." Just food for thought.