1.++Chapter+One

What Skills Will Students Need for the 21st Century?

Highly Educated Useless Person p. 1-3
 * McCain said he was a tech person 25 years earlier than everybody else and bought an Apple II computer. He started working on games and typing essays for the classroom.
 * McCain said he was a highly educated useless person, which means that he was successful in the classroom, but not in real life. He failed in his first position trying to inform a cartography company about the proper computer to purchase for their business.

Highly Educated Useless People p. 3-5
 * He thought other people were producing those 'highly educated useless people' as he created engaging lessons for the students.
 * McCain was frustrated with the fact that his students were unable to complete tasks without guidance from him.
 *  Asks that teachers be aware that we should not be so wrapped up in teaching standards, but should be more worried about developing higher level thinking and problem solving skills.
 * McCain gave an example of Lisa who was able to 'Memorize to Survive' and two weeks later she could not answer the question. She was just as he had been - an over-achiever, a bright star. If she couldn't recall the former fact, he wondered how anyone else could!!
 * He did not realize he was creating the highly educated people that 'others' were creating until that moment.
 * Instead of equipping students with useful real-world skills, he was teaching them to take a test.

School Skills p. 5-7
 * We are producing useless people because we are teaching school skills.
 * We measure schools, students, promotions based on performances for these school skills.
 * We are producing people that cannot handle mulitple duties.
 * Sometimes we have no choice but to teach to the test.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">If you're assigned five pages you're going to get five pages whether they are quality or not.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Real World Skills pg. 7-10 <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Stand and Deliver – Lecture-style teaching p.10-13
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Real world workers need to work with individuals across the world.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Different time zones - a work shift can last 24 hours.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Real world skills - be able to communicate via the computer or other technology.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Team work skills are a required part.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Need to be able to analyze relevant information and apply that, along with basic technology skills, effective communication skills & collaborative (teamwork) skills to be more effective problem-solvers!
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">McCain says that most teachers aspire to do good things for our students, to prepare them for success in the modern workplace. In reality is that our teaching reinforces school skills much more that real-world skills. This is being done because of increased testing being brought into k-12 education.
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">A lot of teachers main focus is delivering the course content and classroom management so that they can pass a standardized test. Many teachers are using the “stand and deliver” approach to instruction. In this type of teaching situation the students need little more than low-level recall skills to be successful in the class.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">21st highly technical students will only be successful if they have real life problem solving skills.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">We think we are prepairing students for college when only 21% of students go on to college.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">We need a fundamental shift in how we teachers present material to students.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">The Myth of Postsecondary Education - p. 13-14
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">Many teachers consider it their primary job to prepare students for schooling after high school graduation. Many think that they don't need to focus on practical skills because they say that they will get them when they go to a postsecondary school. The fact is however, that only about 25% of students go on to a postsecondary school.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">It's time to rethink how we teach - p. 14-15
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 14pt;">We need to rethink how we teach students if we want to prepare them for the world when they leave our school system.