Help and Support everybody around the world

“Skills young people should be learning to be prepared for a career in 2020 include:

The ability to concentrate, to focus deeply.

The ability to distinguish between the “noise” and the message in the ever-growing sea of information.

The ability to do public problem solving through cooperative work.

The ability to search effectively for information and to be able to discern the quality and veracity of the information one finds and then communicate these findings well.

Synthesizing skills (being able to bring together details from many sources).

The capability to be futures-minded through formal education in the practices of horizon-scanning, trends analysis and strategic foresight.”

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/what-are-the-skills-needed-from-students-in-the-future/

You know what continues to upset me in education?

It’s not how we label kids (although that is pretty high up there on my big list).

But, it is how kids label themselves.

I’m starting to see it with my own kids. I’ve got four, but three are in school right now (5th grade 2nd grade, Kindergarten). It’s almost natural for them to start saying things like, “I’m not that good at spelling, Dad”, or “I can’t do that math homework, but I’m good at the social studies.”

I saw it with students when I was teaching middle school, and when I was teaching high school.

They would come into class with labels for themselves. How well they could write. Whether or not they considered themselves a reader. So many believed that they were not creative. Many just thought they were not learners, not good at this game of school.

On the flip side, I also had plenty of students come through my classroom who labeled themselves as “smart” and good at the game of school.

They were often the ones who would ace a test, but be confused with how a project-based experience was going to be assessed. They too labeled themselves as a specific type of learner, and it had negative consequences in a different way.

In a competitive world, students will need an arsenal of workforce skills in order to stand out from their peers as they enter the real world.