In an earlier post, we looked at the second myth (teacher-led instruction is passive) Daisy Christodoulou debunks in her book Seven Myths About Education. Today we move on to myth three.
Myth 3: The 21st Century Fundamentally Changes Everything
You’ve probably heard this myth yourself. According to this myth, back in our parents day, we stuffed knowledge into the heads of students. Now, however, this will just render our children irrelevant. Now we need to focus on the acquisition of transferable skills so our children can adapt quickly to the inevitable changes that our modern world will bring into their lives.
Some even go so far as to say that those taught under the old model of knowledge will be doomed to ever-diminishing manual jobs, while skills educated children will ‘whizz around the country problem solving.’
Trends which express this myth
There are some trends in education that spring from this myth. One of these is for a curriculum to be based around skills instead of subjects. An example is the Opening Minds curriculum which is centred around five essential skills rather than subjects. The skills are: citizenship, learning, managing information, relating to people and managing situations. All good skill to be sure. Skills that we certainly want our children to learn.
Another example is the New Zealand curriculum, which although it has subject areas, is fairly sparse in terms of knowledge requirements, focusing instead on skills. In addition, the curriculum emphasises five key competencies: thinking, using language, symbols, and texts, managing self, relating to others and participating and contributing.
Are these skills unique to the 21st century?
The problem with all of this is not that these skills are not important, but that these are skills humans have always needed to be successful. There is nothing uniquely 21st century about them at all! Creativity and problem solving are indeed 21st century skills. But they are not uniquely 21st-century skills. The world has always favoured those who were creative and able to solve problems. Did our forebears require these skills? Of course they did, just as much, if not more so than us.
But the real issue is the way we now propose our children gain these skills. The whole movement pushing the teaching of ’21st century skills’ has become a codeword for removing knowledge from our curricula. But this is perverse, as Christodoulou points out.
…removing knowledge from the curriculum will ensure that pupils do not develop twenty-first century skills.
Implications
Skills are not gained in a vacuum. Knowledge based curricula give our children what they need to develop the skills we all recognise are essential.
Secondly, we should be sceptical of those who argue that we need to toss out old ideas and knowledge. The reverse is true. The newer the idea, the more likely it is to become obsolete! Christodoulou points out that if something has proved itself useful over thousands of years, it is a good bet that it will be useful for the next 100 years. But something that has only been valuable for 5 years? In that case, we cannot be so certain. Therefore the newer an idea, the more sceptical we should be about teaching it in our schools. The older ideas have stood the test of time.
I’ve seen this in my lifetime. In my high school years, we did some learning in ICT. I learned to use programmes that no longer exist.