THE LATEST fad to sweep K-12 education is called “21st-Century Skills.” States – including Massachusetts – are adding them to their learning standards, with the expectation that students will master skills such as cooperative learning and critical thinking and therefore be better able to compete for jobs in the global economy. Inevitably, putting a priority on skills pushes other subjects, including history, literature, and the arts, to the margins. But skill-centered, knowledge-free education has never worked.
The same ideas proposed today by the 21st-Century Skills movement were iterated and reiterated by pedagogues across the 20th century. In 1911, the dean of the education school at Stanford called on his fellow educators to abandon their antiquated academic ideals and adapt education to the real life and real needs of students.
In 1916, a federal government report scoffed at academic education as lacking relevance. The report’s author said black children should “learn to do by doing,” which he considered to be the modern, scientific approach to education.