After USAT’s Greg Toppo jumps into the quite lively 21st Century Skills debate, Patrick “Eduflack” Riccards and Robert “Panic at the” Pondiscio debate the 21st Century Skills problem. Riccards had better watch himself, apparently Pondiscio is into the longbow…
Riccards: If anything, 21CS is guilty of bad messaging and bad PR. In a time when everyone is concerned about both academic quality and relevance to the economy, many 21CS advocates remain focused on the need for soft skills, believing they have discovered some long, lost map to student success. In reality, they are calling for a reinforcement of the relevance of core instruction. Their message has been off, and as a result, they’ve painted a nice, large target on the back of a well-meaning concept.
Panic: I’m not sure P21’s ”message” is off. They’ve articulated worthwhile goals, but have loopy ideas on how to achieve them, and now they’ve been called on it. That’s not a message problem–it’s a product problem.