Preparing Students for a Rapidly Changing World: Rethinking the Education System

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Stakeholders in the education system are grappling with the question, "How can we prepare students for future jobs when we don't yet know what these jobs will be?" Many groups inside and outside of academia propose that the students need to learn "21st century skills", presumably a new set of skills different from the knowledge and skills that have been traditionally emphasized in schools. Meanwhile, the labor market, competition, and private responsibility often influence what we teach the students and how we teach them. In this session, experts from vastly different fields and backgrounds explore the relationship between the lofty goal of promoting social justice and the tensions inherent in reaching this goal with a market-driven education.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Sungok Serena Shim, Ball State University

Participants

• Carolyn Elizabeth Barber, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Howard E. Gardner, Harvard University

• Paul Hong Suk Kim, Stanford University

• Marc Lesser, National Academy Foundation

• James W. Pellegrino, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Lourdes M. Rivera, Queens College - CUNY

• Rhonda Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers