The Millenials were the first to grow up in a digital world. The iGeneration will be the first to consider a computer mouse and a print book something from the old days. And today’s DigiTods will enter Kindergarten more academically advanced than any generation before. Because they have learned their ABC’s and Numbers already on their i-devices. A is for App!
How will these children deal with knowledge that has become as rapidly obsolete as universally available? How can we help them deal with a world that is increasingly connected and volatile? We still teach more history than future, more print than digital, more achieving than failing and more local than global. For the next generations to be happy and successful, learning, adapting and (international)connecting will be crucial. But that is not what most teachers teach. Not yet.
Skills for the future
The ‘Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ advocates for ‘21st century readiness for every US student’. They work with three main categories in what skills today’s children need: 1) Learning and Innovations skills, 2) Digital Literacy skills, 3) Life and Career skills. Connecting and collaborating across all kinds of boundaries is a big part of all this.
With the recent adoption of the Common Core Standards, global literacy is gaining attention, as educators realize what skills students will need to succeed in a rapidly changing world. To thrive in a international society, students need to communicate and collaborate across cultures and regions. The new Common Core Standards specifically call for students to learn about global histories and cultures through literature and informational texts from across genres, eras, and world regions.
Forty-five of the fifty American states have adopted the recently developed Common Core Standards, which establish new learning requirements for each K-12 grade-level. Implementation of these standards will begin in the 2013-2014 school year. However, current common core standard curriculum options are seriously lacking in their global offerings. At a recent conference on curriculum development not one of the curriculum developers had a program that includes a global dimension.
And that is where we come in. One Globe Kids offers unique, fresh, non-fiction, informational reading texts that can be used to promote critical thinking: exactly what the Common Core Standards wish to achieve.
While there are many opinions about the pros and cons of the Common Core Standards, we all agree that our children need to be prepared for the future. Globalization is here and will become an even more important force in the future. By laying the seeds for fruitful international interaction at a young age.One Globe Kids is investing in the future.
Stay Globe Smart,Sanny Zuiderveld
