Education for worker adaptability in the 21st century

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Re-conceptualizing and repositioning curriculum in the 21st century

Abstract

Most attempts to identify twenty-first century work skills and the education needed to attain them assume that such skills are largely cognitive, can be identified, and can be measured on achievement tests. Today's young students will enter a labor force in which they will be active for 40 or more years after completing their education. Given unpredictable changes in products, technologies, work organization, international trade patterns, and consumer tastes, there will be major changes required of worker skills that can not be easily anticipated. Accordingly, it is important to consider how we prepare workers who can adapt to and even influence the work demands that they will face. This presentation will emphasize how we might educate workers for adaptability, not only in cognitive knowledge, but also in the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills that contribute to adaptability. Of particular importance is consideration of the interplay among the cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills required for future work rather than assuming that education need only attend to the cognitive skills required for productive work.

Author

• Henry Levin, Teachers College, Columbia University