Moving at the Speed of Creativity - A fantastic community conversation on education and workforce needs

A fantastic community conversation on education and workforce needs

Published by Wesley Fryer in economics, leadership, schoolreform on February 9th, 2009

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Sheryl Nussbaum Beach’s recent post “21st Century Workforce Readiness” highlights a fantastic recent day of conversations which took place in Newport News, Virginia, focused on 21st century skills, workforce needs, and the importance of educational change to meet the demands of our dynamic economy.

I serve on the education committee for Creative Oklahoma, and in our meeting last week we discussed an upcoming spring event in Oklahoma which will focus on similar themes. The questions which the participants in Newport News tackled were very thoughtful and constructive. One of these questions was:

Thinking in terms of the skills, knowledge, abilities and opportunities needed to prepare today’s students for the 21st century workforce – what are the barriers that are currently keeping this from happening in our classrooms and community?

Based on all the ideas generated from the day, it seems obvious event organizers did an great job not only facilitating this discussion but also ensuring the participant responses were documented and archived for subsequent sharing and analysis.

Common themes discussed by participants included the need for relevant learning in schools, and the obstacles posed by high-stakes testing as well as fear of technology by many adults. Solutions brainstormed by participants included:

leadership development, cultural awareness, professional/teacher development, partnerships/community involvement and student curriculum.

I really hope we’ll be able to have a similar conversation here in Oklahoma about these topics in several months. I highly recommend you read through Sheryl’s entire post about this event and the participant perspectives. Catalyzing conversations like this is exactly what Dr. Scott McLeod encouraged us all to do in our communities during his keynote presentation two weeks ago for the OU K-20 Center’s MidWinter Leadership Conference. It is FANTASTIC to be able to read so many details about the conversations Virginia state leaders are having about these issues, thanks to Sheryl’s leadership and the work of many others. GREAT JOB VIRGINIA LEADERS!