Jay Matthews Changes his Mind about 21st Century Skills
November 30, 2008
A few weeks ago, I got in an e-mail discussion with Jay Matthews, the education reporter at the Washington Post. At the time, I felt that Matthews attack on 21st Century Skills was unfair, uninformed, and not constructive.
His response to me included this line: “You are the first email I have received that takes your side.”
Well, a few weeks later, Jay Matthews writes:
Now I am forced to calm down, take a breath and consider the possibility that I was wrong about this, because a scholar whose work I admire has produced the first sensible report on 21st-century skills I have read.
I suppose I wasn’t scholarly enough to change his mind, but it is great to see that he is being open-minded about his views on the topic.
(Thanks for the link DJ!)
Update: Here is a link to the report that Jay Matthews.
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4 Responses to “Jay Matthews Changes his Mind about 21st Century Skills”
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Hi Nitin
Did he happen to include a reference to the report he was talking about? The one by the scholar whose work he admires? That might be interesting reading.
Dave,
Great to hear from you.
I updated my post with the link.
Here it is:
http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/MeasuringSkills.pdf
-Nitin
This report, along with the debates about it, was also mentioned by Eduwonk back in November.
http://www.eduwonk.com/2008/11/a-little-t-a.html
Jay Mathews also thinks the indoctrination program from UNESCO called IB is a good idea. I’m not impressed.
This is yet another fad that will fall flat on its face. How many times do we have to embrace fads like Mastery Learning, Outcome Based Ed, etc and watch them fail miserably before we figure out we need to get back to the basics?
The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them. by E. D. Hirsch.