Weekly Reading Reflection – 9/7

Article: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20^th Century by Claudia Wallis

        Over the years the world has changed dramatically but why does the education system look the same as it did many years ago? This is the main question of the article.

        As I read the 21^st Century skills that were noted in the article, I thought to myself that I did not learn any of these skills when I was in high school. But now I realize that I should make sure that my students use these skills in my classroom. With the subject of math, I can bring in many aspects from the world economy or just show how math is all around us in the world. I can allow my students to think outside the box by giving them many word problems or math brain teasers that make my students think instead of giving them a problem where plugging in numbers into a formula will give them the answer right away. There are many great math resources out there but until the students know which websites are legit and which are not they should be careful with which information they use. But where should they learn how to know the difference between legit and non legit websites? In the classroom!! The last skill of having people skills will be taught in my classroom because group work will definitely be used. Students don’t have to be told what good people skills are but with practice with communicating in groups they will pick up what is good and bad.

        Another part of the article that was of interest to me was the part about Google. Why go into detail about a topic if the students can just Google it and read about it themselves? I think the point here is that teachers should not give straight facts but rather connect the material to real life applications or be creative with the lesson and make it more appealing for the students to learn.  I know Google won’t take the jobs of teachers because Google cannot make a personal connection with the students like teachers can. This personal connection and communication helps students learn and feel included in the learning process.