This post is a summary of the part 1 of the book with the title above published at http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Learn-About/21st-Century/Defining-a-21st-Century-Education-Full-Report-PDF.pdf
Technology has been transforming human life in one way or another for thousands of years. But in the computer age, the pace of tech change is very rapid. Many experts say that since the 1970s, new tech, combined with demographic, political and economic trends, have altered work and social lives in ways that have significant consequences for today's young people. Those trends have prompted some education reformers to argue that the traditional curriculum is not enough: schools must provide students with a broader set of 21st century skills to thrive in a rapidly evolving, tech-saturated world. But defining what that term actually means can be daunting. Leaders should dig deeper than the flashy phrases and poorly defined buzzwords that tend to characterize the 21st century skills movement. They should make a serious effort to understand the best empirical evidence on what skills will be necessary for students. This book represent an initial attempt to lay the groundwork for such effort. Examining trends that have change the demands of work and life in the recent past and continue to do so today. The most important are automation, globalization, workplace change and policies increasing personal responsibility. Automation: Anybody who has visited a factory recently understand the impact of the use of computers and computer-driven machinery to replace human labor, has been significant. But automation means more than just replacing human limbs with computerized machinery on assembly lines. Today, computers also increasingly accomplishes a wide range of work-related thinking tasks once performed by humans. Economist Richard Murnane of Harvard have documented how computerization is increasing the demand for some kinds of skills even as it erases many jobs. That is because computers are good at information processing, and every job requires information processing of some sort. Computers can perform a task if the information involved can be digitized and presented in a suitable form, one the computer can understand and process. In addition, now computers can perform some simple kinds of pattern recognition, they are taking over other formerly human tasks, for example, recognizing and acting on words spoken into a telephone. To summarize, computers are substituting for humans in performing "routine" work tasks that require the rote following of rule or directions. At the same time, people are increasingly being called on to perform more complex thinking tasks that computers still can not perform, such as those that involve complex interactions with other humans or that require soving unexpected problems using expert thinking. Strong math and reading skills are essential, too, since they form the foundation for complex communication and expert thinking. Globalization: Another major trend shaping future skill demands is "globalization," the breaking down of economic, social, and intellectual borders between nations. Globalization has not taken place independently of technological change. Advances in ICTs have acted as "flatteners," leveling the playing field so that workers no longer enjoy a home court advantage and face increasing competition for skilled jobs. Work-flow software and common tech standards allowed disparate software packages to talk to each other, which in turn enabled work projects to be carved up into parts, sent out to whomever could perform them best and cheapest, and then reassembled into a final product. The result was new platform for conducting business, one that allowed much more collaboration across much greater distances. Eventually, a whole new set of business practices evolved to take advantage of this new platform: offshoring, outsourcing, supply-chaining, signaling a shift from "vertical" production to "horizontal" collaboration. One thing economists agree on is that the jobs lost to automation and offshoring are unlikely to return. They also increasingly agree that whether schools can adapt will not only have an impact on opportunities for individuals workers, but also on the country economies. Now that economists have access to several decades' worth of educational and economic data, they are able to analyze the relationship between a nation's skills and its economic prosperity in more sophisticated ways. Several recent studies have found that cognitive skills as measured by international assessments of math, science, and reading are powerful predictors not only of individual earnings but also the countries' economic growth. According to one set of studies led by Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, as the world becomes increasingly interdependent, enhancing human capital will become increasingly critical. And it is not just about cultivating the talent of gifted students. The researchers also investigated the question, "Which is more important for growth, having a substantial cadre of high performers or bringing everyone up to a basic level of performance? The scientists in a society may contribute to the creation of new tech, but in order to fully realize the potential of such innovations to boost overall productivity, members of the workforce have to be skilled enough to learn how to apply them in their jobs. Many countries are developing strong skills. China's Eleventh Five-Year Plan adopted in 2006 focused on tech innovation and the need for a rich talent base, calling government to cultivate talents and improve the capacity of universities in China will become an important force for the establishment of an innovation nation. A 2008 study revealed that big pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Johnson & Jonhson are beginning to offshore some of their advanced research work to China and India. Globalization is clearly influencing skill demands in several ways. First, because they will face a job market in which workers no longer have such a large "home court" job advantage, students will need to ensure that they have sufficient skills and enough education to compete for jobs in a truly global economy. Lower skilled jobs are the first to be outsourced, but higher skilled work is vulnerable. Globalization also is affecting the types of knowledge and skills students will need to thrive. Since they will be collaboration with people around the world, they will need to have greater "global literacy," knowledge about languages, people, and cultures outside their own countries. Workplace change: Many companies have realized that in a "global knowledge economy," human capital is their most important resource. And they are using their human capital in very different ways than they did 30 years ago. In globally competitive firms, jobs have changed in a number of ways. Less hierarchy and supervision, more autonomy and responsibility, more collaboration, less predictability and stability. How will workplaces and business practices change in the future? In new books like Wikinomics and Crowdsourcing journalists have described innovations collaboratively on the internet. So far, according to writer Jeff How, the impact on skill demands seems to mirror the impact of automation and globalization: "Crowdsourcing accelerates the globalization of labor and the economic dislocation. Like the internet through which it operates, crowdsourcing recognizes no boundaries. "The network does not care where you are, if you can perform the serice, design the product, or solve the problem, you have got the job." Personal responsibility: Clearly, the world in which people live is becoming both more complex and more demanding. That is not a bad thing. Jobs that are more challenging also tend to be more satisfying. At the same time, however, because of changes in corporate and government policies, individuals now shoulder a greater burden of risk and responsibility for their personal well-being. Three intersecting spheres illustrate the trend: job security, health care and financial planning. Taken together, all these trends have created twin forces that are changing what it takes to thrive in the world: First, the environment that people live in is becoming more complex and demanding, while, second, individuals are being asked to take on greater responsibility in their work and personal lives. As economist Anthony Carnevale frame the challenge in a recent article on math education, "It appears that the requirement for mathematical literacy is one of an ascending ability to use math operations with increasing independence and in situations of increasing complexity. This suggest that the way we teach math may not be aligned with the use in most jobs." Students will need strong skills to navigate a world where personal choice are fraught with greater risk. At least, they will need strong math and reading skills to understand the information necessary to understand their choices. And they will need to be able to use what they learn to understand critical information, including health and financial information, in order to make sound decisions that ensure their well-being.
