Seven 21st Century Survival Skills

   Today's children need to be equipped with a greater set of skills than prior generations. I believe this because I have lived it in my own life. As a Gen-Xer I have had to keep up with new ways of living in synergy with technology and a nomadic lifestyle due to war.  Thankfully, I my education and experiences helped me develop an inner repertoire of survival skills that made me be able to survive in today's rapidly changing world.   However, some of these were acquired by chance and without intentional focus on these survival skills, many children will never learn them.

     There are many survival skills that our children need for success in the 21st Century. I define success as more than just college, career or employment success. I look at the greater environment in which learning, business, and productivity can occur and recognize that without government stability, proper allotment of resources, and environmental sustainability, the economic and social systems which allow us to have jobs and businesses at all fail. Thus, today's students need not only know how to succeed as individuals, but help society succeed as a whole. We are all on one ship together and we sink or swim together.  

     It is impossible to narrow them down to only seven essential skills, so I will focus on the seven survival skills that are often undervalued and overlooked. Dr. Tony Wagner lists seven survival skills that are equally important, and a few of his make their way into my list because I believe, from what I have observed and experienced in my 20 years of teaching, they are also often undervalued and underdeveloped in today's education system.  

      An essential 21st-century skill that Dr. Tony Wagner didn't list in "The Global Achievement Gap" is compassion and empathy. In today's rapidly globalizing world full of inequality and destructive -isms and phobias like racism and homophobia, students must know how to build a world that is inclusive and loving to assure a more equal opportunity for prosperity for all.   Societies that have a more equal distribution of wealth have had more longevity and prosperity and less incidences of war, crime, and violence, which can cause irreparable harm to the life's journey of our new citizens, no matter how successful they are.  Thus, compassion and empathy, which help individuals make decisions, large and small, from a place of love and an understanding perspective, can help dissolve the grip of inequality over time. And as business and industry leaders, they will facilitate work places and teams that are more engaged, productive, and loyal. 

      Curiosity and Imagination:   As Dr. Tony Wagner says, an essential survival skill we should be nurturing in kids in 21st-century students is "curiosity & imagination." Interest, discovery, and creation-based learning can help with this.  Fortunately, a renaissance in innovation and the well-known amazing positive impacts technology is providing to the world has fueled a lot of interest in this area of education and schools are become more aware of this important inner skill. The execution has had some blind spots, however. For example, traditional homework is rarely discussed as an obstacle to curiosity and imagination building. Educators would find a more eager class to learn new things if it included knowledge from their peers lives outside of school and if they weren't so burnt out doing so many hours of school work.   

     Stress management is another vital skill students need to learn to be truly successful. What good is it to be the best problem solver or have a lot of initiative if you are stressed out and disorganized?  Students are somehow expected to "know" how to manage their stress and the reality is that this is not knowledge that is readily available in many homes. The amazing results seen in schools that incorporate transcendental meditation, yoga, nature walks and other stress management tools provide children with options and ideas on how to provide self-care to themselves later in life. This will allow them to be at the "top of their game" for longer, be able to achieve life goals, and have more of their cognitive functions working properly when making decisions, creating or working.  Time management strategies, knowing how to prioritize, how to organize one's belongings, manage deadlines, and tend to responsibilities, and other related skills are included in my definition of stress management skills. 

     Sustainability habits - earth stewardship, knowledge of systems, systems thinking, and taking into account how one's actions impact others and the footprint they leave, whether short-term or long term, are all part of what I call sustainability habits. This is another one of those foundational skills that transcend the workplace but make sure that the societal structure providing social stability for success is in place.  Given that individual actions all contribute to the sustainability of all societies, today's children must practice these habits in their workplaces and their homes to assure long-term stability in relation to the natural world and our natural resources.

     Adaptability is another 21st-century skill Dr. Tony Wagner feels is critical. Today's rapidly changing & globalizing world makes this a vital survival skill. Without flexibility of mind, agility, or adaptability, individuals can become anxious, depressed, fearful, radicalized, and reactionary.  This will not only impact their productivity and effectiveness in the workplace, but in their communities too.Some brain science studies suggest that exposure to a second language in first seven years of life can "build in" adaptability at the neurological level and this ability stays with children their whole life. If this is true, it is huge. Schools could have a huge impact on nurturing this skill by simply adding a second language immersion hour to all PK-2nd grade classrooms.  

     Accessing and analyzing information is another 21st-century survival skill, according to Dr. Tony Wagner. More attention is being paid to this, but many schools still do not teach media literacy skills, research on the web, and how to analyze data from the real world.  With so much information at their fingertips, some of which is fake or propaganda, it is essential for tomorrow's citizens to know how to navigate and distill reliable information and know how to navigate the great ocean of knowledge.

     Community practices or interpersonal relations skills is the last skill I would like to mention.  These skills include collaboration, nonviolent communication, teamwork, resourcefulness, and integrity.  This is something that has been left to families and churches, but the reality of today is that many students are not receiving these lessons at home or even go to a church. Furthermore, some homes and churches teach community practices towards only those who are the same or believe the same as they do, perpetuating divisions.  Today's globalized world calls for cross-cultural community building and collaboration. Today's workplace requires that too, as work communities are increasingly made of people from very diverse backgrounds. Today's graduates must be prepared to integrate with and thrive in communities that are often made up of total strangers.