ED 307 21st Century Skills

21st century skill is not digit literacy.  It is the whole shebang--digital literacy, core subject content, learning skills, thinking skills and life skills.  I will agree that these skills are necessary.  I remember being fresh out of high school and working those first jobs.  I remember feeling disoriented in a new environment.  I knew I was smart.  As the years passed, I thought maybe I didn't know the nuances of those first work environments.  Now that I am a grown up with a grown up daughter, I am rethinking whether or not it was a nuance work environment.  What if I was not prepared to enter the work force even way back then?  I have an interesting thought--what if it is not something that needs to be gained but something that has been lost.  My father would say he never wanted to milk another cow again.  It never clicked in my head that everyone in his family worked on a dairy farm.  The kids worked before and after school.  It was not chores like I had--wash the dishes and clean the bathroom on Saturday.  It was day in and day out work.  I have a friend who lived in South Alabama.  She too worked as a child--picking, weeding, feeding, etc.  I think things like collaboration, communication, flexibility, initiative, social skills, critical thinking were part of everyday life for families.  Modern conveniences were not common or cheap back then.  Time management was a skill a child learned early on.  If you want to go play, work needed to be completed.  I don't think that it is a failure of education.  The lack of 21st century skills comes from a societal shift due to the changes we have experienced over the last hundred years.  We do need to gain 21st century skills to include digital literacy.  Its not hard--just a little work!