Try Thinking of it This Way

                The article “Rigor Redefined” put out by Educational Leadership written by Tony Wagner gives the reader a few helpful tips, on how to not only get a job, but how we need to improve overall schooling.  The article tells us that we need to improve our teaching, in order to improve our chances of getting jobs. Wagner tell us that, “We need to use academic content to teach the seven survival skills every day, at every grade level, and in every class.”. These seven skills are: critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration and leadership, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurialism, effective oral and written communication, accessing and analyzing information, curiosity and imagination. I believe that critical thinking and problem solving and collaboration and leadership are the most important skills to know. By critically thinking you allow yourself to reach back into the depths of your mind and pull our info that you can use to further your everyday thinking. Such as perhaps you learned that it is more efficient to shut all your windows before you leave to go places. So when your Economy teacher asks you how to save money, you can remember that bit of info by reaching back. But perhaps the question also asks why this is so? Then you would have to use your real critical thinking and problem solving to ask yourself why this would happen. In basics, you are just asking yourself the problem again, however you are making it so that you can answer it for yourself. This means without any help, only using hat you already know.  For collaboration and leadership, it is important that we work together; however, we must have someone to lead us while we are collaborating.  If there is no one to be the first to knock down the obstacles, then who will? There must always be someone to lead the way, or chaos and confusion will follow.  Executive leaders from big businesses look for these skills when hiring.  So how can the way we are taught affect these skills? Well, Wagner states, “First, students are given a complex, multi-step problem that is different from any they've seen in the past. To solve it, they have to apply critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and call on previously acquired knowledge from both geometry and algebra. Mere memorization won't get them far. Second, they have to find two ways to solve the problem, which requires initiative and imagination. Third, they have to explain their proofs using effective communication skills. Fourth, the teacher does not spoon-feed students the answers. He uses questions to push students' thinking and build their tolerance for ambiguity. Finally, because the teacher announces in advance that he'll randomly call on a student to show how the group solved the problem, each student in every group is held accountable.”.  As Wagner says, we must not simply hand out a test to asses our advancement. The test should be a part of the teaching. It should require us to think for ourselves. To make us dig deep into our minds. To use previously learned things and apply them to things we might not understand, but can figure out using problem solving. The test must require us to explain it in detail, so that we can fully communicate what we need to clearly. It must require everybody to work together, so that all can understand what we are solving. So, does this mean we should give up present day teachings and adjust to these new researched ideals? I believe that we need to in order for us to get jobs, to maintain order, and to redefine the old, to make way for the improved.