Looking into the Future

How do you know if you’re learning the right things now for a good future? You don’t, well not very well. While reading “Rigor Redefined” by, Tony Wagner, I learned some important things that could help every person out there to be prepared for a 21st century future. Tony interviewed hundreds of business and educational leaders around the U.S. asking them questions on what skills they are looking for in young people. He was shocked by the responses he got. Instead of them looking for skill and knowledge of the job, they were looking for people who could think. Not just any kind of thinking but how to ask questions and how to get involved in the thinking of the job the skill they have. There are seven ‘survival’ skills for the 21st century that are key to getting through it successfully. 1.) Critical thinking and problem solving. 2.) Collaboration and Leadership. 3.) Agility and Adaptability. 4.) Initiative and Entrepreneurialism. 5.) Effective oral and written communication. 6.) Accessing and analyzing information. 7.) Curiosity and imagination. A senior executive from said that “Yesterday’s answers won’t solve today’s problems.” I agree very much with him. Every day is a new beginning and it takes new knowledge to accomplish things. That is very important when it comes to critical thinking. You have to use your brain and your knowledge to think through things. Teamwork is also very important today. You have to be able to work with people from all around the world even if you don’t believe the same things they do. You have to solve things together and work things out the right way. Being flexible is also very important. You need to be able to move around and solve different problems whether you’re used to it or not. My connection with that is cheerleading. If something goes wrong, you need to be able to move around at the last minute and not think so much of yourself, but more of your team, in this case your company and colleges. Today, we have so much to learn that maybe it’s too much to learn. You need to be able to take things one step at a time. For instance, you can’t take Spanish 2 without taking Spanish 1 first. If you don’t, you will be frozen in your path and won’t know what to do. In one of Tony’s researches, he viewed an AP Chemistry class. They were doing a lab will mixing chemicals into a beaker. One of the groups experiment went wrong. He asked them what their hypothesis was. They had no answer. Make take on this is that we are not learning how to solve or mistakes. We don’t know how to figure out what we did wrong and we are not being taught the proper things necessary for problem solving in life. If we could learn that and add it to the seven steps above, I think 21st century students will be some of the smartest we have yet.