October 11, 2008 
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. – Alvin Toffler
I have been thinking about how education should look like in our 21st century. Here is a list of the types of learning I think are important.
Notice that traditional, disciplinary topics emerge slowly, but not before the introduction of the underlying building blocks of knowledge, (time, truth, causality, problem-literacy, thinking, problem-solving etc).
I am including a few links for each of the topics.
- Surveys of time, truth, causality, and meaning, (the root concepts of logic, knowledge and thinking)
- History and theories of the self, mind and consciousness (roots of knowledge pt.2)
- Introduction to thinking processes
- Introduction to types of problems (problem-literacy)
- Problem-solving methods
- General introduction to knowledge
- General ethics
- History of culture (local culture)
- World cultures (see general anthropology)
- General sciences
- General humanities
- Advanced problem-solving (another source)
- Focused disciplinary concentration (this depends on the discipline)
- Multidisciplinary studies
Related in this blog:
Peter Drucker’s requirements for education systems
Related elsewhere on the web
A huge list of blogs about education in the 21st century (mostly written by teachers themselves)
21st Century Literacy Specialist
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What does the future look like? Peak oil, global warming, economic collapse, fisheries collapse… how best to prepare our children for such things?
There are 5 underlying things I can think of right now, and they are all process based, not content based, so that all the other information can be evaluated and processed effectively:
* Nature underlies everything. Understanding how natural systems work. Chaos, complexity + fuzzy logic. Generate a core understanding that the real world is not binary. The systemic view of the world, there is no single answer.
* the process of innovation. Of moving from an idea to execution.
* creativity – creativity is essential, art / music / dance. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)
* critical thinking
** how to take an idea and understand whether it is fact, opinion or well reasoned judgement, and what the implications and impacts of that are in the real world
* how humans can work together:
** Collaboration
** Conflict Resolution
** Emotional self control – slowing down our reactivity
** Psychology
** Leadership skills
Thanks for the comment David. We have covered some of these topics in this blog. By the way I liked your posting on sustainable culture, and the politics of sustainability — I also liked your collection of quotes.