Are 21st Century Skills More than Digital Literacy?
The phrase, 21st Century Skills has been buzzing in educational discourse in recent years. Lately, along with skill sets such as digital citizenship and computational thinking, educators are adding more and more soft skills to the list, for example the ability to take initiative. Until recently, taking initiative has been a quality more associated with the ideal employee, not the ideal child. Instead we tell children to be quiet, be patient and to wait until they are older to make their own decisions. But digital age students of today, or digital natives, as some call them, will increasingly be expected to self-direct their own learning and to self-motivate as they grow up.
In a moving interview, Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chair of the Alibaba Group, urged teachers to change the way they teach children, “Everything we teach should be different to machines. If the machine can do better, then you have to think about whether you should be teaching a child that.” See the excerpt from the interview here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHt-5-RyrJk). The film makers at Let It Ripple Film Studio would agree with Ma that it is most important for children to learn to do what machines cannot in their short film, The Adaptable Mind. It showcases Mary Beth Heffernan and the qualities she needed to make a great, positive change in the world:
Heffernan was listening to coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and thought how isolating and traumatic it must be for patients to interact only with hazmat suits for weeks on end. She thought, “What if they put pictures of their faces on the front of the suits?” Thousands of letters, grants, and hurdles later, Mary Beth’s story reveals that, while there is a lot of fear that technology is displacing our jobs, the skills we need most in the 21st Century - curiosity, creativity, taking initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking, and empathy - happen to be skills that machines don’t have; only humans have (Let It Ripple Film Studio). View The Adaptable Mind at https://www.letitripple.org/films/adaptable-mind/
How can we encourage our children to excel at the skill set which allowed Heffernan to help so many people from the other side of the world? Curiosity, creativity, taking initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking, and empathy are qualities that need a lot of nurturing by parents, guardians and teachers. At Lorna Whiston Schools, we do our utmost to ensure that our staff, curriculum and teachers all work together to instil this skillset in our students. Below are a few tips for parents to help nurture these qualities.
Curiosity
Young children are natural explorers and scientists. Support your child’s curiosity about the world around them from a young age by engaging all their senses. Kinesthetic activities like making and then playing with playdough will engage a young one’s sense of touch, for example. When children ask a lot of questions, stay in the conversation and offer deeper questions of your own for them to think about.
Creativity
Many adults wish they had the creativity of a child! Allow imaginative playtime and encourage the growth of creative pursuits and ideas. It’s even better if you join in the fun! Discuss the impossible! Remember, when we were kids, today’s world would not have sounded realistic to our parents!
Taking Initiative
A person who takes initiative must be confident in herself, her beliefs, and her ability to communicate and collaborate effectively. Encourage children to share their ideas and opinions, even if they might seem a little outlandish at times! Discussing MindCraft, for example, might not seem educational, but your little one is learning to express opinions confidently and to support ideas with supporting points and examples. Ask your primary age child for help finding creative solutions to a simple household or community issue that is important to you both. Then, model the behaviour of taking the initiative to do something to solve the problem. Your child might even surprise you with her ability to lead this process!
Multi-Disciplinary Thinking
Read many different genres of books together with your child. Then discuss the different merits of thinking like a scientist, a historian, or a mathematician, etc. How is the way one expert thinks different from another (i.e. a fantasy novel writer versus a biologist, or a biographer versus an engineer?) Are there any similarities between the ways different experts think and solve problems?
Empathy
Parents know that empathy does not always come the most naturally to children. Modelling empathetic behavior helps, but oftentimes it needs to be taught explicitly. Discuss real life situations often and ask children to try and imagine how they might feel if they were in another person’s shoes. Discussing characters’ emotions and dilemmas in books, TV and film, and then making connections to the world can also be effective.
By Sara Stillman - English Enrichment Teacher, Senior Curriculum Developer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sara has been teaching in Asia since 2003. She joined Lorna Whiston Schools in 2015 and is currently Senior Curriculum Developer. She gains a great deal of personal and professional satisfaction from the profession, and strives to instil confidence and an appreciation of literature in all her students. She is currently completing her Master's in Curriculum and Instruction through the University of Kansas.