Education in the 21^st century

Introduction

Our world, our nations, our communities, our families, and our children face unprecedented challenges as we continue our journey into the 21^st century. Ecological crises are now common around the world and they will grow worse as we continue to misuse our natural resources. Global warming is having catastrophic effects on our weather patterns. Current projections are that this will only get worse in the next 30 years leading to drastic changes in our earth's climate, temperature, and rainfall patterns. This will lead to dramatic dislocations of populations that currently exist on subsistence farming.

The continuing spread of HIV-AIDS and the potential spread of "bird-flu", anti-biotic resistant tuberculosis, and the continuing ravage of malaria will devastate large portions of the world that have poor nutrition, bad sanitation, poor medical care, and inadequate social support systems. The current devastating effect of HIV-AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is just a portent of the coming medical crises. The rise of stateless terrorism and fanatical authoritarianism in an age where there is access to nuclear, biological, and biochemical weapons also poses continuing threats to all established states; especially those with widespread poverty and ethnic minority populations who feel repressed by their governments and those in authority.

Finally, business is going through a profound change as great as the change that we saw occur from the pre-industrial to the industrial revolution. Just as we saw enormous dislocations of workers as the industrial revolution make old ways of doing work obsolete, we now are faced with a new "industrial revolution" that will focus most of the capital and wealth in persons and companies that are able to use the widespread availability of optic fiber cable, high-speed computers and processors, and an educated labor force available to take advantage of this new "knowledge" revolution that makes any person or business anywhere with access to a computer and the internet able to compete with any other person or company anywhere! We do not have to wait for the impact of this new "knowledge revolution" to start, it has started and we have already seen the devastating impact of individuals, families, and communities devastated by the impact of dislocations that result when jobs become obsolete or are outsourced to other countries that can provide workers who are better skilled for less cost/per hour of employment.

Added to this "knowledge" revolution is the rise of large multi-national corporations that owe their allegiance to no state or nation, but can and do move services and production to any place on the globe where they can get the best return on their investments.

We face a daunting future which will only become more complex, more risky, and more competitive as years go by. Our children, if they are to live and thrive in the 21^st century, must learn a whole new set of skills that will prepare them for work in such an ecologically frail, economically vulnerable world. The style of education that has evolved to address the needs of companies in the industrial age will not provide the kind of workers needed in this post-industrial, knowledge era.

Implications for education in this post-industrial age

• Emphasis on Advanced Math, Science, and Social Studies. Successful "knowledge" workers in the 21^st century will have strong backgrounds in mathematics, science, history, and social studies. Since most of the work will be done by computers, those persons who are most facile in developing, maintaining, and transforming existing technology to the new technologies that will be developed and used in all phases of business will be at a premium.

  Persons who do not have strong math, science, and social studies skills will not participate in the new "knowledge" revolution, but will have to try and find work in areas not already made obsolete by the new systems that will seek to use machines to do everything they can get them to do. Only lower level service jobs will be available with low-paying wages as many displaced workers vie for the fewer and fewer service jobs available.

• Develop of Strong Bi and tri-lingual knowledge workers. Communication with other knowledge workers will be one of the keys to success in the post-industrial age that we are entering. It is clear that a person who seeks to be successful in any industry that has been globalized and flattened is English. Although one can argue whether English should be the "universal" business language, it is! So fluency in English is a prerequisite for success in the knowledge age. But knowledge workers must also be fluent in other languages. Because of the size of their populations and the influence of their industrial output, one should seriously consider learning at least one other language such as Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Spanish, Russian or possibly one "Romantic" language, be it German, French, or one of the other European languages.

  Because being bi-lingual or tri-lingual is so important in the post-industrial age for successful knowledge workers, and because language learning is literally "child's play" for young children, schools should offer multiple language courses for children from kindergarten age through post-secondary levels of education. This will insure fluency in the critical languages necessary to be a successful knowledge worker in the 21^st century.

• Working Across Cultures in Project-focused teams. Since the availability of knowledge workers will be world-wide, with the opportunity to work cooperatively as easy as turning on one's computer and setting up an internet "chat" or "conference", knowledge workers will have to be able to work effectively with persons of different ethnic and different cultural values and mores. The development of such social skills and multi-cultural sensitivities is best accomplished in environments that provide support for the learning of social skills in multi-cultural nuances in a supported educational community.

  No longer will the social norms of one or two cultures dominate the social and cultural behaviors of successful companies. Knowledge workers will have to be able to adapt to the various communication styles, cultural pre-dispositions, and other unique attributes that individuals bring with them in the post-industrial age. And rather than seeing this as a deficit, the ability to develop solutions that are truly cross-cultural and trans-national will benefit those companies who hire such skilled, diverse workers.

  You may be an American, a Kazakh, an Indian, or from Korea, but in the 21st century, you will be expected to work comfortably with other knowledge workers from all cultures and from all cultural backgrounds. If you are unable to do so, you will not be a successful knowledge worker in the 21^st century.

• Being able to access, process, and select useable information. Knowledge has been doubling at a faster rate than ever before in recorded history. We learned more in the 100 years between 1900 and 2000 than we had in the previous 1900 years. We have learned more in the last 10 years that we learned in the last one hundred years. And at the same time, access to knowledge has become instantaneous and available world-wide with the aid of fiber-optic cables, computers and sophisticated search-engines.

  We must not only know what the right questions are, for every answer is irrelevant if we ask the wrong question, but we must also be able to judge which answers that are available to us best fit the problem we are addressing.

  Finally, most knowledge is value neutral. It is only in the hands of persons who can access the information, process the enormous amounts of information available and narrow down the information that best addresses the problem at hand in the shortest amount of time that knowledge gains value.

  The most successful knowledge workers in the 21^st century will be those who ask the best questions, learn how to evaluate the information available quickly, and select the information that best addresses the problem ate hand in the shortest amount of time. Such facility with information gathering, assessment, processing, and output will be one of the most important skills of knowledge workers in the 21^st century!

Helping students face the challenges of the post-industrial era

The dramatic challenges that we face and the dislocations caused by the post-industrial age must be recognized by schools and by parents that hope to prepare their students/children to be successful knowledge workers in the 21^st century.

Let us outline the implications for schools that will be successful in preparing their students for work in the 21^st century.

• Successful schools will have to use the very best curriculum available that provides rigorous education in math, science, history, and social studies.
• Successful schools will have to be intentional in seeking culturally diverse, highly competent teachers who are committed to staying on the cutting edge of their professions and model a continuous learning environment and team building that leads to success in every educational experience.
• Successful schools will have to be intentional in recruiting ethnically and culturally diverse student bodies and develop opportunities in the classroom and in the community for their students to interact in projects that build their social skills in small group work teams across cultures and ethnicities.
• Successful schools will have to actively engage parents to become partners with the school in providing the rich mix of educational, social, and business experiences that must be part of every student?s learning.
• Successful schools will have to actively seek to address the needs of those companies that do business in the community that it is located in to insure that they provide the skilled knowledge workers that can increase their productivity and viability in the rapidly changing business climate that is the reality today.
• Successful schools will have to have the most up-to-date information technology available to every student in every classroom from kindergarten through graduation.

Summary

The challenges that our world faces as we begin the 21^st century are daunting. Survival will depend upon everyone becoming actively involved in prioritizing problems and working cooperatively to address them.

As we go farther into the 21^st century, the problems will become more complex. Future survival will depend upon parents, schools, and communities banding together to make education of the next generations of knowledge workers and leaders so that they are competent, committed adults who are able to work successfully in the knowledge work that will be required to reduce pollution, reduce the over utilization of natural resources, address overpopulation and the poverty and disease that will lead to the destabilization of peoples and nations, and address state-less terrorist threats so that they can build a better world than the one that we will leave them (our children).

As the Director and Principal of Kazakhstan International School, I commit myself to do everything within my power to make our school the very best it can be to prepare your child to be a successful knowledge workers in the diverse, multi-cultural "flat" world that they will have to live and work in.

But I cannot do it alone. I invite you to seriously consider how you might join me in making KIS the best school possible. We need parents to work with our teachers to insure the academic success of each and every child. We need parents and community leaders to work with me as we set up an Advisory Board to learn from each other and address the constant changes that will challenge each of us, each of our families, and our school.

Director, Philip J. Spottswood, Ph.D. 

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Learning for the 21st Century; A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills, Published by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (PDF, 592 KB)

The Power of Digital Learning; The CEO Forum: School Technology and Readiness, Report (PDF, 592 KB)