Message from the Head of School

Looking Ahead: Skills to Build the 22nd Century

To start off the 2020 school year, we thought it was especially important to identify what skills we needed to ensure our kids were learning, especially in the first three months of school and amid a pandemic. What are, at the end of the day, essential skills that we want students to walk away with – from school, and for a lifetime? There’s a lot of talk about teaching 21st century skills. But the fact is that we ought not to be thinking about 21st century skills, but rather about the skills that will help create the 22nd century. That’s where these kids are going to live. And so to gain a little perspective on that, I want to take a look back to a somewhat similar era: the 1920s.

The 1920s were tremendously dynamic. First, there were enormous changes in technology with the arrival of the internal combustion engine, cars, planes, movies, radio and medicine. Culturally, new music, fashion and places for people in society and work were taking hold. And in terms of education, it was during that time that Maria Montessori was at her height when she arrived in the United States in 1915. John Dewey published “Democracy and Education” in 1916. Helen Parkhurst introduced the Dalton Plan in 1922. The work of these three educators has coalesced over time into what is now known as progressive education. And at the heart of what each of them was advocating for was that the future would belong to those who could think critically, analyze and create. That each individual should be taught to have agency, and that schools should meet the individual where the individual was, rather than the individual having to meet a set of rote tasks.

It was evident to educators at the time that new developments in communications and technology were changing the way people received and responded to information. Across the board, education found itself adapting to meet not only the standards of the current times, but to prepare students to produce the standards of the future. People were leaving school with the spirit of moving the planet forward, and so forward it went.

Across the board, education found itself adapting to meet not only the standards of the current times, but to prepare students to produce the standards of the future.

Let’s fast forward to the 2020s. What are we seeing? Huge changes to the nature of life and the economy, ecological disasters and communications atomizing to a point where there is no longer an accepted truth. And as developments in society, history and culture continue to arise at ever-increasing rates, it is no surprise that conversations like one I had recently in “Philosophy and Religion 9” (the comparative religion course I teach at the High School) occur.

Each February, we spend a class discussing the story of David and the rise, fall and restoration of his character. When we did the hero story when he kills Goliath, I asked students to put together a set of adjectives to describe David. Immediately, the words “ambitious,” “violent” and “self-serving” came out of their mouths as opposed to ones like “courageous,” “intelligent” or “faith-driven,” which are what I was more used to hearing. So when we moved on to the story of David and Bathsheba, they were not surprised. Afterall, what do you expect from this guy given that he’s ambitious, self-serving and violent? But then, when he was restored, I was surprised to find that they weren’t shocked by his rehabilitation either. So at the end, I asked them why they weren’t disappointed in David’s fate, given his role as a fallen hero and they looked at me like George Jetson, as if to say that I just didn’t get it. 

Their answer was simply that there aren’t heroes anymore. Everyone is flawed and everyone expects all heroes to fall. And that’s such an interesting thing for 14 and 15 year olds to be saying. So if those are their expectations, it doesn’t really feel like these 20s are set to roar. But that being said, what are we going to do? How are we going to set this group of people up so that they can flourish as they come of age and have them build the 22nd century? Simply put, it will be through establishing within them the same kind of spirit to move the planet forward that the people who came of age during the 1920s had. The condition of the human spirit should be intact. One should have confidence, resilience and wisdom. Students should leave school optimistic about humankind and of each other. Maybe in this time of pandemic, where this invisible virus is all around us, students don’t feel agency and don’t feel resilience. But we want students to be able to build it forward once these trying times have passed.

So what do we need to teach them?

How are we going to set this group of people up so that they can flourish as they come of age and have them build the 22nd century?

First, schools need to provide students with a sense that working together is the key to success. Not just in relation to traditionally collaborative things like band, dance or basketball, but also in science, math, history, literature and even recess. When confronting problems, students have to be able to think about it from a design perspective, challenging assumptions with empathy for the people the solution impacts, and a lot of creative thinking. Design thinking and problem solving will continue to become increasingly essential skills to have. They should be a natural habit of mind, learned from an early age. To that point, critical thinking is also paramount to student success. And it doesn’t have to be learned exclusively in the context of physical design, but also in the context of literature, history or writing effectively.

They must also learn numerical literacy: mathematics, calculus and data science. There’s the old adage, “figures never lie, only liars figure,” and if you are not well versed in data science or calculus, liars can figure all around you; you’ll see numbers and just believe them. But, if you’re a critical thinker who’s well versed in math, you’ll be able to succeed and build into the future. The same is true with lab sciences which are crucial in helping students learn what the meaning of objective truth is.

…the future belongs to those who can work collaboratively, despite dissimilarity, to generate new concepts, products or ideas.

The last one is what I would call cultural literacy. It’s cultural literacy that allows us to get past difference. I like to say that the future belongs to those who can work collaboratively, despite dissimilarity, to generate new concepts, products or ideas. This requires an ability to cross the divides to reach a brighter future. I find that we haven’t evolved substantially as human beings in this area. We are naturally wired to be defensive and to avoid the unknown. That’s how we stayed safe in the caves, right? 

But we no longer work that way in this world. That’s not what the 22nd century is for. And so we have to teach kids that it is a natural part of life; that difference exists. And to that end, we cannot cancel all of history or ignore it in favor of false narratives. We have to confront it and understand it. It is important for us to realize that when kids are comfortable with difference, they become adults who are more comfortable with themselves.

We know how to teach them the “hard skills” of design thinking, problem solving and numerical literacy. Cultural literacy is the current challenge we have as teachers. Before we can teach students how to transcend difference we have to learn how to do so for ourselves; it is the greatest hurdle that we need to clear. For that reason, it is now, happily, at the heart of Grace Church School’s mission. It feels right and it’s drawn directly from our Episcopal identity. Paragraph two of the Mission Statement talks about all of these concepts and if you believe that the arc of history bends towards justice and always should, this is the one we have to get right. Excellent schools have been churning out able people, but by itself, that is simply not sufficient.

We need to inspire this generation to approach each task as wisely positive people. People who are willing and ready to clear the chasms of difference and see beyond themselves. It will not be easy and it will take time, but that is the final and necessary skill to build towards the 22nd century. It’s something that I greatly look forward to.