Evaluating 21st-Century Skills

When I first started reading the website, Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, I thought that it might be some kind of gimmick to try to make money. I know that the school that I work for has looked into some programs or guidelines to aid teachers and they ended up being pretty poor in what they offer compared to the price that is paid. I also feel that most districts and schools have some teachers and other professionals within that have many positive and useful things to offer. With this in mind, why have to pay someone for something that could probably be figured out from within and still get the same results.

Once I started looking into the website and looking at all aspects I realized that this is a framework that all districts could and probably should implement. One thing that I was most surprised by was that they included life skills. This is something that I feel is very important in helping shape an all around critical thinker who can succeed in the 21^st century. Life skills are something that always seem to get put on the back burner to state assessments, new common core standards, and new teacher evaluations. I was very pleased to see this in their framework.

I feel that this would be very beneficial to my students and to myself. I feel that if this could be implemented in K-5 in my school we would send some pretty amazing, smart, polite, critical thinkers to middle school.