Education Rambler

Attending NECC 2008, I was not surprised to see so many vendors and presentations mentioning the concept of 21st Century Skills.  It’s true that we’re in the 21st Century, and many people have seen the proverbial light when it comes to the concept of a flat world, but I’m concerned that 21st Century Skills may become too diluted as more and more vendors bend 21st Century concepts to fit their products.

I’ll first state that I have personally subscribed to the framework of 21st Century Skills proposed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.  I find them to represent a wide range of skills which I believe to be necessary for success in navigating the world of the 21st century.  One of the skills listed is the theme of global awareness.  Walking around NECC I saw many vendors taking advantage of 21st century buzz words, but didn’t necessarily see the vendors “walking the walk” though they had certainly been coached in “talking the talk.”

The best example of global awareness was at Tuesday’s keynote event with Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley.  Jim and Mali described themselves as educators who had lost their fire and passion for teaching, but were lit up again by global connections through technology.  A theme of their conversation was that their connections weren’t so much about the technology, but about the connections technology afforded them.  It wasn’t about specific products, and it wasn’t about which tools are better tools.  It was about the end result: students learning about students from other parts of the world.

Learning about students from around the world sounds like an easy thing to do, and on a surface level it probably is.  Jim and Mali described how at first their students were writing to their international student colleagues about day-to-day things like favorite foods and favorite colors, but then it got interesting.  Suddenly themes like war, peace, and culture came into play in ways that Jim and Mali probably only half anticipated.  THIS is where the true global awareness developed.

Global awareness is like reading comprehension.  In reading we talk about surface understanding, and really deep comprehension.  I think most educators would agree that we need to develop surface understanding to get to the really good thinking around what students read, and we should never settle for surface comprehension to be good enough.  Mali and Jim started with global awareness at a surface level and took it much, much deeper.  It wasn’t good enough to have students trading trivial information–though this is an important first step in building the relationships–the global awareness their students exerienced built true global awareness about the lives and experiences of students with vastly different lives than many students living in North America.

Jim and Mali’s presentation inspired me to think more about global awareness and the power it brings.  I look forward to seeing true global awareness in the years to come, and hope we all can remember not to settle for the surface, but get to the good stuff!