Our thinking about 21st Century Literacy

Teachers sat in small groups outside in the sunshine with the bay as a backdrop and talked about 21st century literacy... . What's below are some of the thoughts that emerged.

We need policy makers who understand what really is happening in the classroom as well as what is happening in the world. "We need a teacher from our group to be willing to run for President of the US!"

We need more technology time with students. They have to be able to have their hands on the technology and they need to learn an array of skills.

In the future, we won't have to convince parents that their kids need to know how to use technology and tech tools; parents will know how critical this is due to their own experiences--some of which have opened doors and others which will have closed doors. Parents won't just be saying "teach them the basics" they will demand that we teach them all they need to know to be productive in this world.

In "next practice" classrooms, students will be teaching us (teachers) as much as we will teach students. That, of course, means we have to be willing to let go and let students show us how to do things with technology.

Teaching tech tools and teaching students about using technology means teaching them about misueses as well. Students need to understand the "digital footprint" that they leave--and that the negative footprint (the inappropriate texts or photos).

Hasn't technology changed assessment tremendously? In some places, technology is used to provide more and more number crunching opportunities, more tests that are about multiple choice ("selected response"). Data is driving everything and data is about statistics and statistics are always about the group and never about the individual.

"Using technology as an end is pointless." Technology is the tool.

How do we help policy makers realize that a data-driven school world probably won't take us in the direction we need to go?

Some of what we need to do is make sure parents are better informed; with better informed parents they might put some pressure on administrators to rethink what some administrators expect/require to have happen in schools.

Have we let the belief that a test score shows us what a child has learned and therefore direct the practices in school become an "accepted practice" disguised as a best practice?

"Don't let a policy steal your career"--Chris Crutcher