In my last blog entry I wrote about the need for schools to align themselves to the changing paradigms of the 21st century. Fully mindful of the perception that America’s stature has diminished on the world stage and also of the nationwide debate about how best to promote higher standards, I attempted to point emphasis on educational purposes rather than educational content. In today’s entry I will focus on the difference between skills and attitudes, a potentially confusing distinction hidden underneath the rhetoric of 21st century learning.

Experienced teachers are confronted constantly with the interrelationship between skills and attitudes.  Children feel better about themselves when they know how to do things relevant to their classroom curriculum.  As a result they perform better, they feel better about themselves, and they unfailingly develop more positive attitudes about their school experience. Conversely, children rarely operate in an emotional vacuum.  Both research and everyday observation seem to confirm that cognitive performance is invariably tied to emotional security.

So far I have attempted merely to establish that the development of positive attitudes cannot easily be separated from the development of strong skills.  Indeed, this is one of the most foundational assumptions of an experienced teacher.  However, if we are to align ourselves in a meaningful way to the changing paradigms of the 21st century--globalism, cultural identity, ecology, political discourse, social networking, and family structure, we must dig even deeper into the relationship between caring as an attitude and caring about as an outcome.

Children who care about their school subjects are far better equipped to contribute to civic life and to 21st century problem-solving than those who merely know a lot about these subjects. Not only are they more connected and more motivated, they are able to experience their education as relevant both to their own interests and to the needs of the larger world.  From this point of view, the challenge of the 21st century is simply a challenge of relevance.  As John Dewey pointed out many years ago, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”  Accordingly, I know of nothing that better measures a teacher’s effectiveness than the caring quotient of his or her students.

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