We Are Living in a Material World, but am I a 21st Century Girl?

In chapter one Brooks-Young says "Being confident that educators can prepare students for this new world is based on the assumption that they have some idea of what to prepare them for," (page 5).  Stop.  Sit.  Think about that for a second.  Educators have a lot of pressure put onto them to prepare children for the world which they will encounter, but educators can only educate their students to the extent to which they themselves have been educated.  This requires that teachers be continual learners.

As teachers it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that your students may sometimes be smarter than you.  And knowing that a second seven year old can navigate their way around an iPhone better than I can is not always the best way to boost your confidence in your ability to use technology, but that is the reality of the world in which we live.  Our world is changing and we are becoming more and more dependent on technology to make us more efficient and connected to one another.  The skills needed to survive in this ever-evolving technology savvy world are referred to as 21st century skills.  As teachers we need to not be afraid of the changes that technology will bring into our classroom and we need to remember that as teachers we have made a commitment to be life long learners.

I will admit that sometimes the dependency we have on technology makes me nervous, because despite the endless doors it opens, it also constricts us.  By that I mean that we become so dependent on technology that when it is taken away we don't know how to function.  And while 21st century skills are so important for our students and ourselves it can be scary to commit fully to them.  I love the idea of using Skype to connect with classrooms around the world and the wealth of information that is at your fingertips.  But I fear what happens when the internet at your school crashes and you have to change a whole lesson in the blink of an eye.  In this 21st century world the key is balance, and knowing how to use the old with the new.  It's being able to incorporate a youtube video into your lesson about volcanoes or using a social network forum for your students to post questions about homework or that day's lesson. The 21st century skills that we will implement in our classrooms will change the classroom into one unlike the classrooms we once sat in, but it will allow us to better meet the needs of our students and to help them be better prepared to communicate in the world in which they live.