21st century schools are changing education

By Carly Andrews

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Millions of American children headed back to school in recent weeks. Despite the commentary bemoaning schooling in America, politicians and pundits often miss the bright spots in the landscape, including schools that are using innovative models to educate children to be adaptable, innovative and creative.

By applying progressive education ideals that challenged the status quo of the last century, these 21st century schools are offering a different paradigm: a personalized education that is organized around experience and community.

Here are three examples of how the new schooling paradigm differs from the old - and why 21st century education is so critically important to helping today's students prepare for tomorrow's challenges:

l Rather than following a system of bells that separates one subject from the next, 21st century schools are imagining new possibilities of integration.

The study of water, for example, becomes the means by which children integrate mathematical, scientific and artistic modes of thinking. In this approach, students become connection-makers, able to see the links between disciplines, and able to connect past and present to solve problems and create the future.

l Schools of the 21st century are dissolving the isolation between schools and community by using the rich resources of the community to educate the child.

These schools engage children in their communities through service learning and project-based instruction, using real community problems, resources and applications. Elementary school students are engineering bioswales to curb groundwater pollution, analyzing and restoring watersheds and designing wind energy models, and learning how the integration of math, science and the arts can address their communities' current needs.

l Today's most progressive schools are personalizing rather than standardizing education.

They are increasing the contacts between child and teacher, school and home, and creating an educational plan that best fits the strengths of the individual child.

We don't know what the world will be like when this year's class of kindergartners leaves the work force sometime around 2072. But we do know that our children and grandchildren will need to be particularly innovative, adaptable and most of all, creative, in order to realize their full potential and address the issues of their generation.

Let's work together as a community to ensure that our schools, both public and private, are offering students a truly 21st-century education.

Carly Andrews has taught for 11 years in public and independent schools. She is currently the Head of School at Willowwind School, an independent Iowa City school for students in preschool through sixth grade.

Comments: carlya@

willowwind.org