The Need for Change
In the book titled Global
Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, he states that essential competencies and
habits of the mind in the 21st century include effective communication skills, curiosity, critical-thinking
skills and innovation. It
includes knowing how to think-to reason, analyze, weigh evidence, problem-solve
and master content (p. xxiii).
The problems facing our public schools is a low level of
intellectual work, lack of curiosity, forgetful memorized fact regurgitation and
a general lack of real challenge for students in the classroom.
In the 21st century, students have to be engaged
in the learning environment by seeing their commitment as having real meaning
for them and their community. The
standard competitive grading system, that permeates the educations system, does
not contribute to the development of this culture of learners.
Our schools breed a culture of competitors with each
participant vying for their own piece of education that becomes more and more unauthentic
and meaningless. Today, while technology
may have reduced knowledge to a commodity, the real learning in the classroom
will come from understanding derived from experience and project-based models of learning.
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