21st Century Skills for Students, Teachers, and Parents

21st Century Skills for Students, Teachers, and Parents

I’ve been reading “Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing Up to Old School Culture” over the weekend. Its a great read for anyone interested in education reform, education pedagogy, curriculum development, or the future of education in an increasingly digital age. Kirsten Olsen, the author draws on a wealth of experience and personal stories including being, “… a consultant for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kennedy School at Harvard, and many leage public school systems and charter schools.” Kirsten passionately argues (and proves) that our schools, our curriculum, and our teaching methods fail to appreciate diversity, are rather outdated given our current technological realities, and need to be re-aligned to more fully honor the dignity of students and teachers.

Here are some most memorable quotes that suggest a need to change the status quo of education practice or otherwise suggest a fruitful avenue for genuine healing. Hopefully they are thought provoking and encourage you to change your practice or reaction to the national tragedy of wounding in and by schools:

“Mass education was the ingenious machine constructed by industrialism to produce the kinds of adults it needed…the solution was an educational system that, in its very structure, simulated this new world…the regimentation, lack of individuation, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading, and marking, the authoritarian style of the teacher–are precisely those that made mass public education so effective as an instrument of adaptation for its time and place.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“If a teacher today is not technologically literate–and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more–it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.”
-The Fischbowl Blog, September 11th, 2007

“New media allow educational designs to move away from strictly presentation environments (books and lectures). New media allow for great customization, flexibility, and interactive learning experiences. New digital technologies allow us to move from a strictly print-based learning (in most schools) to multiple representations of meaning.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“If you are in education, you are in the business of brain development. If you are leading a modern corporation, you need to know how the brains work.”
-John Medina, Brain Rules, 2008

“Good teaching also involves a certain kind of gravitas, a sense of receptivity and taking students seriously and of being deeply interested in them, and an ability to communicate passion and excitement for what is being taught. It requires, paradoxically, the capacity to think big and small simulanteously: to have at the center the why of what students are learning, the heart of every classroom plan, and then an infinite number of small, well-executed plans to help everyone gain access to the big, important ideas.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“We don’t begin to have enough teachers or school administrators or school coaches who know how to deliver instruction in new ways. Teachers have to invent a lot of their practice on their own and structurally are largely unsupported and too much along in this work.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“One of the ironies of teaching is that it is one of the most social occupations, but it is also one of the most isolating professions.”
-Peter Cookson, The Challenge of Isolation, 2005

“My curriculum values imagination, human relationship and the exchange of ideas, somatic knowledge, and open-ended learning….There’s nothing like their creative energy!…It is what feeds me, and what allows students to express things they cannot in other places in their life. We are mutual healers in the classroom. This is my vision. We all need that…”
– Eve, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“Now what many CEOs and human resource directors say they are looking for in employees is self-confidence, persistence, and creativity about how to do the work better.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

“Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others.
When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.”
-Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 1979

“In graduate school I was constantly realizing how much the diversity of my classmates–their many divergent points of view, their disparate styles of learning, their differences in expression, color, socioeconomic status, geographic background, and voice–added to my experience as a learner.”
– Kirsten Olsen, “Wounded by School”, 2009

My Take on “Wounded by School” and Changing the Status Quo Toward One More Oriented Toward 21st Century Teachers, Learners, and Current Realities
I recommend this book without hesitation for those interested in educational reform and making curriculum decisions for your classroom. Further, it delves into the existential realities of parents and students and provides a starting point toward changing individual behaviors which can aid in the holistic healing process, even in the midst of schools which may wound. It consolidates several threads in the literature and provides real examples and personal testimonies from students and teachers who live in the broken system and offer ways in which we can all become better at healing ourselves and the system.

Your Take on the ideas in “Wounded School” and Curriculum Reform for the 21st Century Teaching and Learning

Do you think its time for a change in education in terms of preparing learners to compete in the 21st century? How can teachers, administrators, and public policy advocates best help change the school culture and curriculum?

Are digital tools a partial answer? If so, how? Are there examples of great schools breaking the mold and embracing change either with technology or without?

How can parents and learners heal themselves? Or perhaps how can they alter the trajectory of a system or classroom which may not fully respect or honor their individual learning style or personality?

Coming soon…more quotes, commentary, and semi-insightful analysis…. As always, thanks for reading.