To Know, To Value, To Act - A well rounded 21st Century HCS student

21st century Learning component graphic

Mahalo to the folks at Educational Technology and Mobile Learning for finding this link! If you have not signed up for their free link, I strongly suggest it!  They provide resources in short, chewable chunks that are easy to digest! (I am making no apologies for the food reference as I am hungry while I am typing this!)

I found this graphic to be particularly intriguing.  We have spent exhaustive hours on the topic of 21st Century Learning.  I have personally come and spoken with a few of our HCS schools on the topic (and will gladly come to visit more of your campuses!) as we move more purposefully into raising the rigor of our academic programs while at the same time engaging our students on a more personal level and deciding on just which tech tools will best help us accomplish this!  Foe me, this visual connected as an educator and also as a Catholic.

Academically, I thought this graphic separated the idea of 21st Century skills into easily comprehensible parts.  Teaching our student the Foundational pieces is critical in the current century, yet some people are hearing that these foundational pieces are going away with the move to 21st Century instruction.  In my understanding, that could not be further from the truth.  In fact Foundational Knowledge has become crucial to truly actuate the other parts of the learning equation.  Digital Literacy, core content knowledge and the inter relational understanding of  content taught in schools serves as the launching pad for the other two forms of knowledge.  Meta Knowledge is best applied when a strong foundation is in place.  Being aware or the global setting and our role in the big picture (Humanistic Knowledge) is so important in our interconnected world as more and more our ability to collaborate and connect becomes easier, faster and more wide spread.

What struck me about this graphic was how nicely it tied to our mission as Catholic education institutions.  Our Foundational Knowledge is our belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  This is where we begin.  From there, we move to what we value as Catholics and then to our belief that we must act to complete our faith.  It is not enough to take just one part of this trio.  We need all three.  For too long in education, we have remained in the Foundational Knowledge circle because it was easier.  We are compelled to move out of that circle and connect with the Humanistic Knowledge and Meta Knowledge in order to give our students the rigorous and well rounded education they deserve!