21st Century Skills
Learning for Life in Our Times
Chapter One
Learning Past and Future
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet
exist ... using technologies that haven't yet been invented ...
in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet.
-Richard Riley, Secretary of Education under Clinton
It happened quietly, without fanfare or fireworks.
In 1991, the total money spent on Industrial Age goods in
the United States-things like engines and machines for agriculture,
mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation,
energy production, and so on-was exceeded for the first time
in history by the amount spent on information and communications
technologies: computers, servers, printers, software, phones,
networking devices and systems, and the like.
The score? In 1991, "Knowledge Age" expenditures exceeded
Industrial Age spending by $5 billion ($112 billion versus $107
billion). That year marked year one of a new age of information,
knowledge, and innovation. Since th ... read full excerpt from: 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times ebook