A Compass for 21st Century Education

“At some level, once you realize that you’re in water too deep to stand, you have to have a very different approach, which is basically:  Plans don’t work, mapping doesn’t work.  You need a compass and a trajectory and some values to figure it out as you go along.”   

Joi Ito, the new Director of the MIT Media Lab, interview with Popular Science, December 2011



Map - a plan; to arrange a method or scheme beforehand.

Compass - an instrument used for finding direction

The "water that is too deep to stand in" is the constant change that is occurring at a rapidly increasing pace.   Our schools confront challenges that our education system was never designed to and may not be equipped to answer.(1)  A compass is the tool we need today to guide us through these rapid changes  . . . 

---

About 2 years ago I visited a school, Inner Harbour, in Douglasville, Georgia, USA.  It is a residential school for children who are emotionally and behaviorally challenged.    I rank this school as excellent in terms of caring, creativity, emotional environment, and curriculum.  Their curriculum is project-based, and the students' successes were extremely impressive.

As I visited classrooms all over the campus I noticed that the two compasses I had designed some years earlier were enlarged, laminated and posted in every single classroom.  The principal, Dr. Penny Honeycutt, informed me that the teachers AND the students referred to and used them on a daily basis to guide their work!  I was amazed;  I had designed them originally for myself as a guide to writing units, and then later had shared them with teachers at my workshops to use as they designed their units.  It never occurred to me that they could be a tool in the classroom.

Every article and book, every web site you see, is professing that what our students need is development of 21st century skills such as creativity, adaptability, effective oral and written communication, collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, initiative and entrepreneurship, accessing and analyzing information, and curiosity and imagination.  But, when you go into the school, into the classroom, they aren't there.  It is test prep, memorization, and lecture.

What kinds of experiences do students need to develop the 21st century habits and skills?  Evaluate and plan your curriculum and instruction, policies, schedules, building design and more using a compass.   Then you will stay on course and take your students into the 21st century equipped to succeed - personally and professionally.

(1)  Hess, Frederick. M., Educational Entrepreneurship - Remarks to the Education Industry Association membership, Washington, D.C., March 14, 2007

See our 21st Century Education Compass here.