Essential skills: Get past the tricky and stop trying to balance

We used to think essential skills were limited to reading and writing (maybe toss in a little science and history for good measure). But today that isn’t enough. Our world has changed and with it our educational systems must respond (from preschool through college and even graduate school). While some systems are staging their response and showing great gains; others are still living in yesteryear with a systemic focus on academic skills and nothing more.

She said, ‘…but Jody school has never been about just academics’ and I responded with ‘I know that, but we’ve never had enough information to say with certainty that we were in fact purposefully developing things like creativity and collaboration; it was a system of ‘maybe-sort of’ instead of doing with intended purpose.’ We talked more and eventually she understood my point.

It’s not a question that tomorrow’s jobs will necessitate an entirely different view of readiness. Albeit readiness for Kindergarten or readiness for college, the challenges that our new economy presents to our systems of education are real. The need to address essential skills like critical thinking, empathy, problem solving, creativity, and collaboration (to name a few) is real and not slowing down.