What About 21st Century Learning? Part 1

I have just listened to an inspiring, challenging, question-raising podcast:

Greg Bitgood, Superintendent, Heritage Christian Schools, my boss, visionary leader, and supporter is beginning a series of podcasts on the BC Premier's Technology Council report on "A Vision for 21st Century Education” which was released in December.  I am not often excited about reports from the BC Premier's office, but I AM very excited about this report and about hearing Greg's reflections.

The Report considers four topics and Greg reflects on these as they pertain to distinctive Christian education.  In this blog, I would like to consider:

1. Needs of the Knowledge-Based Society.  Numeracy and Literacy skills will always be important, but the context and the scope of those skills are going to be applied by our students in a world vastly different from the one we as adults grew up expecting to operate our lives in. iPads and Kindles are only just the beginning!

Last evening my 18 month old granddaughter looked at her Mummy's computer and asked, "Where Lala?" (she can say "apple juice" but not "Granny"! go figure!).  How do we even begin to imagine what her literacy and numeracy skill set will need to encompass?  Consider how out-of-touch the teaching methods I began with in the classroom of the early '70's would be in her classroom!  

Sitting here today at my computer, I wonder, "How do I encourage and challenge Mums who bring to their kitchen tables a particular mind-set of education that is the product of such teaching methods?  Do we understand that a knowledge-based society has quite different numeracy and literacy skills than a product-based society required a generation ago?  CRITICAL THINKING becomes ... well... critical! 

I love what Greg says: "As Christian educators in this 21st Century we have to build the foundations, the platforms, so to speak, that we can reason and think from. It is more than just helping them choose the right web pages to use from their Google search. Good critical thinking only happens from the objective position of a well thought worldview. Never before has our meta-narrative been more important in the minds of our young learners."

How will you ensure that your children gain foundational mastery of numeracy and literacy skills so that they excel in FSAs (as if that was important!) AND gain critical thinking because they have developed a well thought out world view?  I would like to recommend reading Mike Goheen's excellent book Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview  if you are seeking a way to think about these things, to understand more deeply and critically just what a Christian worldview might need to consider.