Teaching for the 21st Century

The topic of preparing students properly for the modern world has come up numerous times within teacher panels and classroom discussions. When Steve Chambliss came in to give us an administrator's perspective, the theme of technology and teaching for the 21st Century resurfaced again. He believes that many teachers are still teaching the same way that they have always been and teaching for the 20th Century. He notices that current students are coming into schools needing to learn more character skills, such as integrity, respect, and honesty, than they have in the past. There are many factors for this but the result is the same: teachers need to make a change in their teaching styles in order to prepare students for the world they will be in after they graduate.

I found this really interesting video clip that emphasizes this point as well. I found it fascinating that there are more honors students in China, for example, than there are students in general in America. While this has a lot to do with population, this is an important issue to address. Many students are coming into schools with tons of technological experience. With iPods, text messaging, video games, and computer social sites, students have been exposed to a variety of skills and stimulation that has not necessarily been shown to them in the classroom. Teachers, to properly teach in the 21st Century, need to adapt their lessons in order to engage their students effectively. As Howard Gardner explains, many students have multiple intelligences. Technological intelligence is a growing one and a majority of students will be ahead even of us when we start teaching. To prepare students we need to harness some of this skill and bring it into our lessons. While I am not advocating for the complete integration of technology, I am saying that we need to incorporate stimulating activities, such as review games done on the computer or classroom blogs, to provide students with learning opportunities as well as giving them critical skills that will help them survive in the ever-growing technological "real world." To sum up, I will end with the words of Chambliss: "Don't do the same thing for 41 years." He stressed that at the very least teachers should be changing how they teach a class and what they teach within that. To keep up with the competition from high-achieving students from countries like China and Japan, US teachers need to break from past traditions and base their teaching on facets of our modern society.