What additional skills can you think of, above and beyond those mentioned in this chapter, students will need to succeed in the 21st century?
The most important skill students will need is flexibility and the ability to retrain. The world has changed a lot since Literacy is Not Enough was published in 2011. The number of smartphone users in the United States has nearly tripled since 2011 (Statista, 2022). We live in a world where nearly everybody on the planet can access the internet from a device that fits in their pockets. Never has so much information been available to so many people. I wish I knew what that portends for humanity. But I do think that the people who will succeed are the ones who are nimble and able to quickly change their work habits. The 21st century is a world where the technology and information students use and learn as college freshmen are outdated before they earn their diplomas.
What does it mean to teach in-demand skills like creativity and problem-solving when those skills can also be outsourced via Facetime? The COVID-19 pandemic showed very quickly how little physical presence matters to getting creative work done. Couple this with the fact that almost anyone can video chat with anyone else anywhere in the world, why do we think any cognitive skills cannot be outsourced? Crockett et al. say that creative class jobs are “facilitated by technology, not replaced by it” (2011, pp. 25). I think that is less true now, not because the jobs are being replaced by technology, but because technology is facilitating other people around the world to do the replacing.
Crockett, L., Jukes, I., & Churches, A. (2011). Literacy is not enough: 21st century fluencies for the digital age. 21st Century Fluency Project.
Statista. (2022, October 18). Number of smartphone users in the United States from 2009 to 2040. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-smartphone-users-in-the-us/
The Keasy Depot 