Defining A 21st Century Education

This paper from the Center for Public Education is aimed at defining the educational skills needed in the 21st century. The author first outlines how the world is changing and the impacts on work and life. This includes automation of formerly human-performed tasks, globalization of the economy, and restructuring of traditional organizational hierarchies, along with a rapidly changing and more diverse demographic population who have more individual responsibility over their lives. He then discusses specific knowledge and skills that will be most important in addressing these new work-life demands. The author concludes by identifying the implications of this knowledge shift for schools and providing suggestions for how school districts can adapt to this new way of learning and allow students to thrive in postsecondary life.