Education for the 21st century, new idea or old?

What is a 21st century education? 

Hey, I wanna know as well. I was looking online for some articles on education and came across this piece by Dave Mundy. He gives a pretty harsh idea of what the "21st century" skills are. Mr. Mundy asserts that education reform isn't really happening in the United States, and if anything, only can prepare students to work at Wal-Mart and use a computer. Asserting that the skills outlined in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) are only skills to help utilize computer skills that are already being understood by students. Here are the skills that are on the NCTE website:

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology  
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally  
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes  
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information  
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts  
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

That doesn't sound that bad does it? Mr. Mundy thinks so. He asserts that it is just computer skills. Hold up, just computer skills?


So in the article he says to go to the Department of Education to read about it. Guess what? The buzz word everywhere is "21st century" education. But what IS it? Yes, we are in the 21st century, but from my knowledge nothing seems to have radically changed. In middle school we used technology to help us with projects and we also worked in groups to collaborate on work. Is it that new of an idea? Or is this supposed to be in the context of hands on materials? Everyone talks about hands on work so what is different about that?


If anything, it just seems like it means that we are going to just use technology more in the classroom to promote collaboration. However, that is not the only aspect to it. Mental abilities become greater in the idea of math, science, and literature.  The idea of grasping concepts through mental calculations rather than pen and paper. 


Okay. So the mental math/science is new, anything else? I don't see that much. So maybe Mr. Mundy's statement that education reform isn't happening is true and it is only there to fill the pockets of "reformers." Whatever the case is, "21st century education" is my buzz word for the week and the next couple of posts will be focusing on its development and why it is coming about now.