Paige Johnson: The Value of 21st Century Skills

Rick Allen

“There are a lot of kids who feel they’re just passing time in school,” Paige Johnson told attendees at the opening general session of ASCD’s Fall Conference, Leading & Learning in the 21st Century, held at National Harbor, Md., outside Washington, D.C.

This wake-up call served as a backdrop to Johnson’s session, in which she explained the value of 21st century skills for today’s students. These students are already negotiating a very different landscape of learning—which often takes place outside of school through powerful new technologies that are transforming the economy, ways of learning, and even society itself.

Johnson, immediate past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), is now the global manager of Intel’s education program, which helps teachers integrate technology for education in over 60 countries around the world. She was introduced by ASCD Executive Director Gene R. Carter, who reminded the audience that moving education forward means not “going back to basics,” but rethinking the school curriculum so that student become globally aware critical thinkers and problem solvers who can operate within a variety of literacies beyond reading and math—in fields such business, civics, and the media.

Around the world, from Europe to China to India, governments are trying to determine what kind of education will be needed for their future workforces, said Johnson. It pays to pay attention to education, she emphasized. She pointed out that if United States closed its achievement gap and every student performed as well as those in top-ranked countries like Finland and Korea, the U.S. gross domestic product would rise by as much as 16 percent, to $2.3 trillion.

Over the next 50 years, workers may expect to work in 15 or more jobs—and not necessarily in the same field—because science and technology, and the entrepreneurial initiatives to harness them, are constantly opening up new fields.

Johnson unpacked the now-familiar P21 "rainbow" of skill areas that include the following: core subjects and 21st century themes; learning and innovation skills such as creativity, collaboration, and communication; information, media, and literacy skills; and life and career skills, such as self-direction and flexibility.

Fourteen states already have plans to integrate 21st century skills into their schools’ curricula. This means these states will find ways to reconfigure standards, assessments, curriculum, professional development, and learning environments. However, 21st century skills do not take place in a vacuum. Content knowledge is as crucial as ever, said Johnson, answering criticism that P21 skills eschew content.

Assessments in some countries are already capitalizing on new technologies that today’s students use. Denmark recently decided that high school leaders will be allowed to have access to the Internet for their exit exam. But this means that the assessment itself will change, Johnson said; exams will require thinking, performing, and working with a novel situation—rather than simple recall.

Johnson urged the audience to bring back the message to their home districts about the importance of 21st century skills by informing them of resources at the P21 Web site. Once there’s buy-in from stakeholders, districts and communities can assess the current 21st century landscape to determine how to define and prioritize 21st century skills that best fit local situations while keeping in mind that critical thinking and problem solving are “first among equals,” Johnson said.