XXI Century Problems Require More Than XXI Century Skills
Tags: Systems Thinking, Collaboration, Adaptability, Education, Creativity

By Natalí Alcalá, Jose Arnaud Bello, Mateo Riestra. April 6 2020.

2020 has been a tough year. The challenges of an unpredictable and fast-changing global landscape are here now, changing the way we live. Millions of families are having to homeschool their children during this period of social distancing. If this is indeed part of a new normal, we believe it is a crucial moment to reflect on what and how our children should be learning. The future is catching up with us faster than our systems of education are adapting. How can we help children engage creatively, collaboratively and adaptively to a rapidly changing world?

The education model we grew up with was born out of the second industrial revolution. It was designed to serve the needs of a society focused on a man vs nature approach to progress. Foundational knowledge was standardized in an effort to more easily incorporate the worker force into the modern industrial complex that would deliver on the promise of never ending economic growth. Intelligence and knowledge was meant to triumph over nature. We grew up thinking of the future as a promise of endless prosperity. Today, however, the 22nd century is rarely evoked with excitement.

Our systems of education, which have largely remained unchanged for the better part of 100 years, need an update. Learning systems should be designed to meet the needs of an uncertain future. Education should be more future-driven than any other industry.

International bodies like the World Economic Forum, UNESCO and the OECD agree on the need to focus our education initiatives on the development of key skills for the 21st Century. Skills like creativity, collaboration and adaptability are considered vital in the design of education programs that will help us generate value for ourselves and our environment in the future. However, we still lack the shared definitions and evaluation strategies that would allow us to develop these skills within our learning systems. What we need is a working model: an example of how these skills participate successfully within larger, complex systems.

All systems are about relationships and connections. It is in times of crises, like the global pandemic we are living through, when the fragile ties between us sever, that we realize just how interconnected we are. World climate, geopolitics, the global economy, social networks: we interact with and participate in complex systems every day. But we are generally unprepared to participate responsibly within these larger systems. Systems thinking is just not a part of our formal education. How do we incorporate systems thinking and XXI skills into our learning from an early age? We believe the answer is the Natural World.

Nature, a highly complex network of relationships, has been sustainably solving problems for more than 4 billion years in creative, collaborative ways. Through play and exploration, Nature can be a gateway not only to an intuitive understanding of foundational knowledge like science and maths but can also provide a framework for developing creativity, collaboration and adaptability while touching on other important systemic strategies like diversity and interconnectedness, and soft skills like empathy, communication and responsible citizenship. Nature, when seen from this perspective, can be a blueprint for true innovation and self discovery.

Adaptability, Creativity, and Collaboration are ALBA’s pillars in 21st Century Learning.

At ALBA, we are developing a system that helps children explore Nature as a model for learning through play. We are building a curriculum around creativity, collaboration and adaptability which children and parents can explore through modular learning experiences that we have adapted for home-learning use. Our work is centered around helping children be better prepared for the increasing complexity and uncertainty of the world we live in. If you want to try out our learning system, please reach out.