21st Century Skills

21^st century skills are the “knowledge, skills, and expertise students should master to succeed in work and life in the 21^st century.” It is believed that incorporating these skills into the core subjects of the curriculum will help in the mastery of the skills. Everything in this world is growing at exponential rates. The economy of our country is becoming a global one, in which we constantly interact with multiple economies. The leaders of these different economies have to be prepared for the ever-changing future. As we have always heard, today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders; therefore we must properly educate and prepare these students for the global market. But how do we do that? If technology is outdated within three years, how is a student supposed to keep up? It is up to the teachers to educate the students on how to grow with the technology.

As an Elementary Education major, I will one day be responsible for teaching tomorrow’s leaders. Implementing the 21^st century skills through the core subjects and weaving the 21^st century interdisciplinary themes into the core subjects will be crucial on my part. Helping children to not only learn how to survive, but learn how to grow in all areas is extremely important.

I liked this video, because it does a good job of explaining the kind of education that our kids are getting and the kind they need. The facts presented in the video about China soon being the largest English speaking country, and people having 14 jobs by the time they are 38 are very true and very scary. It is so important that we, as educators, try our best to give our students the most opportunities to succeed.