21st Century Middle Schools: What Does Success Really Mean?

Interesting article...just remember, 10% of the 21st Century is now over. We need to act NOW to prepare students for the future!

April 2010 • Volume 13 • Number 4 • Pages 8-11

Written by Bernie Trilling

We've all read the reports and heard the experts: middle school is a crucial time when students grow their hopes and commitments for success in school, in future work, in family and community life—or not.

As middle grades students think more about their future and what it will take to "make it" and be successful in the world, they begin to wonder how their school experience is helping them get there. They compare their world outside school—social, connected, global, information- and media-rich, full of real-world problems and challenges, and so forth—to the world inside school, and wonder what the connection is.

There are no more important questions facing our schools, teachers, parents, elected officials, business leaders, and—most important—our students, than "What does success really mean now?" and "How should school prepare students for success in our times?"

Our world has changed dramatically, and there are wide gaps between our 21st century world and the world inside many of our schools.

• The work world is increasingly made up of diverse teams working together to solve problems and create something new. Why do students mostly work alone and compete with others for approval?
• Technology is more a part of children's lives each day. Why should they have to check their technology at the classroom door and compete for limited school computer time?
• The world is full of compelling, real-world challenges, problems, and questions. Why spend so much time on disconnected questions at the end of a textbook chapter?
• Doing projects on something one cares about comes naturally to all learners. Why are learning projects so scarce inside so many classrooms?
• Innovation and creativity are very important to the future success of our economy. Why do schools spend so little time developing students' creative skills?

The good news is that there is a growing worldwide consensus as to what 21st century learners need for success.

The more challenging news is that it will likely mean that what goes on in your classrooms each day must shift so that students will have more of the learning experiences they need for future success.

Over the Rainbow

Books like Thomas Friedman's The Earth Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century and Linda Darling-Hammond's The Flat Earth and Education, and reports and surveys like "Are They Really Ready to Work?" where 400 business executives were asked if the U.S. education system is graduating work-ready students (their answer: "Not really"), all point to a growing worldwide consensus that

1. The world is in the midst of a change as big as the shift from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age more than 350 years ago. This time the shift is from an Industrial Age to an Information and Knowledge Age where information, knowledge, expertise, and innovation are increasingly the main engines of our economy.
2. Our education system, well-tuned for the Industrial Age, now needs to sync with the demands of our times and focus on building the 21st century knowledge, skills, and expertise we need for success.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), a U.S. coalition of education, business, government, and non-profit organizations, has collectively evolved a compelling model of what learning needs to look like in the 21st century (www.21stcenturyskills.org) (see Figure 1).

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