Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Evaluating 21st-Century Skills


The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (www.p21.org) is an organization that has specific benchmarks for skills they consider necessary for today’s students.  The major outcome and support systems they believe are core subjects, life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, and information, media, and technology skills.  They seem to focus on the core subjects (3 Rs).  It surprises me that the focus is not on technology since we are becoming so advanced in technology.  However, I know that the core subjects are extremely important. 

I noticed that my home state of Michigan is not listed under State Initiatives.  We must not be on board with P21.  I feel that some of the skills listed on the website are not the school’s responsibility to teach children.  I believe that children should learn a lot about life from their parents.  I feel responsible for educating my students but many life and career skills should be learned elsewhere.  There is not enough time in the school year to focus on all of this in my classroom.  Some responsibility needs to be taken at home. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Tanya,
    I agree that there definitely needs to be some responsibility taken at home. Students need to be getting an education both at home and at school. Unfortunately, it seems that many people are not interested in being an educator at home. I just heard someone say the other day, "I pay my taxes so my daughter is the schools responsibility now. I'm not going to work on any academic things with her." I think this is completely wrong attitude towards teachers and the education system as a whole. We are there to help and do our best to make each student a successful citizen but parents must still be involved to support and supplement what we teach.
    Jasmin

    ReplyDelete