21st Century Skills

This is a hard one, because we're supposed to be teaching our students to be ready for a world in the future, but we don't know what skills they will need, yet. It's freaky and I feel inadequate. People keep saying that as long as we teach them how to be creative and to become problem solvers, everything will turn out alright. I think they're right in a way, but what if I'm not a very good problem maker in the first place?

 Lucky for me, our world is full of problems. The more and more I think about planning a curriculum, I think the best way to go is to expose students to the problems that we're facing now, and see if they can come up with a way to improve our world today. It doesn't have to be big, but I'd like to show every student that comes through my door that we can do something to better our society. 

 So now that I've got a goal, what are the skills that I need to teach from a language arts perspective? 

1. A huge shift in education with Common Core is towards research. This would be the perfect place to begin a kind of service project because they would not only need to find a cause to support, but also a way in which to support it.

2. Planning and organizing would be next. This is my favorite because it's the step where you get to imagine a perfect world where everything goes right. This is also the step where students would have to anticipate potential problems and solve those problems before they even happen. 

3. The goal of language is to communicate, and in the real world, everybody has to be able to share knowledge with others. Students can find the best way to communicate their plan and then go for it, whether it's writing e-mails, interviewing people, be interviewed, posting tweets, blogging, or writing real-life letters, communication is an integral part of this process. 

One of my coworkers did a freakin' fantastic job of this earlier in the year, but I think the biggest part of the process was first getting her students to really buy into the project. By the end of the unit, those students had all participated and were pumped to run the dodgeball tournament that they had worked so hard to make happen. 

Some of you may be thinking, a dodgeball tournament? How in the hell does having a dodgeball tournament teach the CCSS? My very knowledgable reply to you would be,"How in the hell did they not meet the standards!?" Those kids researched a problem, worked collaboratively to come up with a way to raise money, advertised in the school and community to get others involved, planned the entire tournament, and ran the sucker. Yes, Patty was there to facilitate when she needed to (teachers are necessary), but her students worked their tails off.  

Try to convince me that your students will remember your 8 Part of Speech Unit longer than hers will remember (and be proud of) their Dodgeball Tournament Unit. 

By the way, I was inspired to write this at the salon, and I captured my inspiration by writing it on my iPhone. I think that's a 21st Century Skill, as well: learning how to use a Smartphone.