I do know this: the learning we value is not really that different, though I must say that I have not seen it articulated explicitly in many “old hat” curricula – so I think we’ve done well to say, “hey this is important, so we need to make sure we formalize it into our school intended (and taught and learned) curriculum.”

But back to my point, the learning we value isn’t a new set of values. But the media and audience with which those values have changed/shifted.

We cannot allow schools or individual teachers to say that their kids communicate and collaborate well, if they only do so in the context of their own classroom. In the same way, we would never allow someone to say that their students are experts in managing information if they only have used books and microfiche (do those still exist).

In the latter case, most people get this. So why not with the former?

I as yet, have no better term, and ultimately I wish that teachers would not infer from improvements to students’ learning experiences that we no longer value what they know and have to offer. Maybe the fundamental principle of teacher training should be “always get better…what you know now will need to change as the world does.” Maybe then we won’t have this problem with the wave of teachers.

Maybe.

This is a timely post and I recently had this discussion with colleagues at my school, who felt this term had lost its currency. There are a number of issues with the “21st century” label.
I agree that it originally depicted the excitement of knowing that we had opportunities to promote new ways of learning and communicating. The term has connotations of progression and moving forward, even though now we are almost in 2010.
However, for some people it suggests that their educational values are “old hat” or, worse, obsolete. I agree that we need a term that is inclusive but I wonder whether any term would appeal to people who remain unconvinced that there is a need for fundamental change to the way we “do school”. BTW, the new blog is lookin’ good!