A friend of mine who blogs about homemaking established a new series titled Favorite Things Friday; she encouraged other bloggers to run the same series. Megan’s favorite things are beautiful and meaningful items of importance or interest to her and are presented as a way to get to know her a little better. I decided to adapt this series to fit the topics in my blog, so readers can know me a little better. Therefore, on Fridays at Learning to Muse, you will read about a favorite text. How often have you been asked--“What’s your favorite book?” Narrow it to one for all time? No way. One per week? Maybe.
This week’s favorite text: 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel was published in 2009. Though I read it for the first time last year, I decided to feature it as a favorite this week. Why, you may ask?
If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts, you can probably tell that I am passionate about education reform. We are undoubtedly in need of change to a system that is broken and in dire need of repair. I attended an implementation science workshop recently where the presenter provided research suggesting 17 years as the typical time to see change from the implementation of a program not implemented well; 17 years in education would be more than the life time of schooling for a single child. Clearly, we haven’t figured out how to implement education reforms well. The authors of 21st Century Skills offer practical suggestions, tips and resources for schools seeking to prepare students for the life awaiting them after high school graduation in a future still unknown in our rapidly changing world.
Trilling and Fadel remind us to consider global perspectives and understand “every country can play a part in building a global learning network (p153).” By understanding the role learning plays in our lives, we can innovate, create, problem solve and communicate across boundaries.
Would it be cheating to offer a website as text to accompany the print text I’ve chosen for this week? Check out: www.p21.org
