Diane Ravitch, an historian of education, is carefully deconstructing the "21st Century Skills" movement by demonstrating that its key ideas are direct descendants of loopy nostrums from the past 100 years. "The cause that animated schools of education throughout the 20th century??was the search for the one discovery that would unshackle schools from teaching content," she said.
She's recounting the "life adjustment movement," the "outcomes-based education movement," "SCANS,"??and on and on. They were all precursors to "21st Century Skills."
Schools of education "have paid precious little attention to the disciplinary knowledge that young people need to make sense of??the world," Ravitch said.
"We have ignored what matters most. One cannot think critically unless one has quite a lot of knowledge to think about."
"The educated person learns not only from his or?? her own experience, but from the hard-earned experience of others. We do not restart the world anew in each generation."
And now, over to Don Hirsch.
