Harvard's Tony Wagner On 21st Century Skills

While at the Education Summit in New Orleans, Tony Wagner spoke to the group about his research and recent publication on the skills today's children will need for success in the 21st century.

Full disclosure, Tony is a good friend and a thought leader on 21st century education whom I greatly admire. He has written an insightful new book - The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can do About It - that is a must read for every parent, teacher and education policy maker.

What gives Tony unique credibility, in my view, is he has been in the trenches of teaching prior to becoming a Harvard professor. He brings the practitioner's experience to his research. Prior to assuming his current position at Harvard, Tony was a high school teacher for twelve years, a school principal and a university professor in teacher education. Today, Tony serves as Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

It is interesting to evaluate whether the skills Tony believes fundamental to individual success in the 21st century are enhanced by Cisco's 21st century New Orleans classrooms.

Comments

[Patricia Cox]

Hi, I am an administrator in a small rural school. I am a huge supporter of Tony Wagner and his practical choice of educating our society with a common sense approach to the tools of education. I have started my entire student body on a neuroscience program call Brainware Safari, which builds cognitive skills in every area of learning. If we train the mind to learn, then everything else will come more readily. Our next step will be to follow with 21st Century skills. Thank you Tony and many thanks to LEC for Brainware, Sincerely, Patricia Cox, Ed.S.

[Al Meyers]

Bravo to you, Bob. I am also very involved with the movement to reinvent our education system, and I believe we need to continue to provide cross-cultural examples that validate the notion that our country must make major strides to educate our students or else I have a great worry at what our country's economic position will be like in five, ten, twenty years!

Keep the faith!

Al Meyers, ReinventED Solutions