By Dan Liebert
Principal, Tech Valley High School
As the school year begins, it is worth a moment for us to recall that President Barack Obama in his State of the Union in January challenged American education “to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.”
What are educators supposed to do to accomplish that?
We need only look at our own region to find the answer.
The goal of education in the Capital Region is not to prepare every student to work at GlobalFoundries. However, what is happening there is instructive for our region’s educators.
Here is guidance from the “Just For Students” section of the GlobalFoundries careers Web site: “Our success is what happens when a highly skilled, globally diverse workforce meets an environment that encourages collaboration and new ideas. Challenging projects. Smart people. The opportunity to redefine the foundry landscape. And a culture centered on corporate ethics, accountability and sustainability.”
The skills that are necessary to work at GlobalFoundries — the most advanced and innovative semiconductor fabrication plant in the world — give some direction to answering the President’s question: Know your content, be able to collaborate and be able to innovate.
The skills that are necessary to thrive in an environment like GlobalFoundries, and dozens of other new businesses and emerging technologies in the region, are different from those we traditionally teach in our schools.
It’s not just about semiconductors. If we are to create high-speed rail, develop alternative energy, create affordable, high-quality health care and take advantage of technological advances in nanoscience and bioscience, students must develop additional capacities beyond passing Regents exams and accumulating credits. We have to teach deliberately to a set of skills beyond content.
As Alain Kaloyeros, senior vice president and chief executive officer of the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, said to the first graduates of Tech Valley High School last June, if we are to meet the challenges of the future, we have to develop in our society the capacity to be innovative, take risks, think critically, communicate and deeply collaborate with others. These are at the core of what educators call 21st-century skills.
Students may come out of school with creative capacities. They may finish with the ability to collaborate and do great work on teams. They may be able to confront and solve problems without calling their supervisor. Or they may not.
Our nation’s schools generally do not teach purposely to these skills; nor do we hold students accountable for developing them. We do teach them to prepare for Regents exams and other standardized assessments.
We do not universally hold students accountable for being able to (1) handle challenging projects, (2) work well on teams, (3) create and innovate and (4) contribute to the development of a culture of ethics, accountability and self-direction.
The evidence is mounting that K-12 education cannot leave to chance the development of these 21st-century skills. In our region, Kreiger Solutions, a training and consulting firm, concluded in a 2009 report to the Greater Capital Region Workforce Investment Boards that all of the evidence points in one direction: “Implement critical structural changes in K-12 education. The Board of Regents, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and most of the educators with whom we spoke indicated a need to change from the old industrial model of education to one that focuses on building competencies in a contextual way.”
Deliberately building these competencies is at the heart of 21st-century teaching and learning and what we need to do to respond to the President’s challenge.
This is not a call for a reform, a fad or a panacea, but rather a sober analysis of what schools are producing. Our schools, particularly high schools, are not producing the graduates we need.
If we do not teach deliberately to these 21st-century skills, the ability of our graduates to get jobs and create jobs is rather slim, especially jobs that require critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills.
The evidence is overwhelming: We must transform our pedagogy to meet the demands of the current and future economy. As educators, we need to evolve our pedagogy toward more project-based learning, a high use of technology and a focus on developing school cultures based on trust, respect and responsibility.
This is what will prepare students for the jobs that are here in our region and help us respond to the challenge that the President has labeled our “Sputnik” moment.
Published September 4, 2011, Times Union
