In The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner posits his second survival skill - collaboration across networks and leading by influence - and touches lightly upon the issues of trust that must be at the base of this new way of conducting our lives and our businesses. Virtual offices and global virtual teams, net meetings, even conference calls all beg the question of how we communicate and collaborate electronically in a highly fluid environment that requires trust. Virtual teams without command and control leadership require trust and function instead through the power of persuasion and even moral suasion. Building trust - especially in settings without traditional boundaries or traditional communities - requires a skill set that is difficult for many to master in large measure because people are more experienced at functioning in places or groups that run by top-down structures and highly individual work, not collaboration and leading by influence.

Webb's honor code and leadership education program, in fact, Webb's very definition of itself as a trust-based community dedicated to the development of men and women of character, go a long way in helping our students master this important survival skill. Webb remains devoted to virtues of enduring worth that are the basis not only of success in the global knowledge economy but also that are most needed to sustain our democratic ideals and society in general.  Webb students learn that living by these virtues is not only a way of life worth pursuing but also a way of life best suited to meaningful leadership. They learn that leadership is not only about doing that which is right but also about living a purposeful and useful life that influences others to do the same. Through carefully designed projects and activities carried out both inside and outside the classroom, they learn that collaboration and teamwork foster trust and lead to better solutions.  

And, they have the special advantage of learning and mastering these skills and lessons in a richly diverse community that reflects the world they will lead. Collaboration and trust in a global environment require much greater sensitivity to the values and perspectives of cross-cultural team members – skills that do not often appear in a high school curriculum. It is certainly possible for all our schools to do a better job teaching this second of Wagner's survival skills, but the truly diverse boarding schools in our nation have a big leg up on other types of schools in making strides in this area. Where else will a 16 year old have the transformative experience of understanding cultures and world views dramatically different from her own on a daily basis?  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills included "global awareness" in its 21st Century Skills Framework, indicating clearly just how important it is for today's high school students to understand and appreciate different cultures. When your roommate comes from Pakistan and becomes like your sister, it can only increase your empathy for people half a world away; and in that fact lies the hope for the 21st century.

As I am traveling throughout Asia visiting current and past Webb parents and alumni, I've been engaging everyone in conversation about Tony Wagner's book, The Global Achievement Gap, and particularly about the first of his seven “21st century survival skills” - critical thinking and problem solving. It's exciting to hear people's views, especially those of parents who have read the book and alumni who have had the "Webb experience" as their foundational, formative educational experience.

When I ask "what do you think is the most important survival skill?" there are some differences in the words but the essence of the answer is nearly universal: independence of thought spurred by questions. It's about the questions, not the answers everyone says. That's how critical and independent thinking develop and that's how problems are solved. And, people continue, it's the basis of creativity and innovation.

Parents - those who know the Webb of today best - offer several examples of independent, critical thinking and problem solving in action. One example that is named over and over again is Integrated Math. One parent offered that when his son first described the classroom - few answers, lots of questions, students in charge, teacher as guide not resident expert, no traditional textbook, etc. - they were both confused. "You see," he said, "this would never happen in one of our schools now. Here students aren't expected to think for themselves or solve real problems." Others refer to how we "do science" naming Peccary trips, museum research, project-based environmental science, use of the Hefner observatory, etc. as exemplifying the development of critical thinking and problem solving.

Interestingly, alumni often refer to our Honor Code and character development mission as an example of how Webb students are urged constantly to ask questions - especially challenging and serious questions - about how to think and act. As one alumna put it, "one cannot be a person of character and honor without thinking independently and critically and without knowing how to break things down, how to connect the dots, how to test assumptions." I'd argue, too, that one cannot participate in our democracy without these skills and cannot live a thoughtful life that contributes to the entire human endeavor without these skills. If you're waiting for answers instead of asking questions, you might as well be a specimen in The Alf Museum.

Of course, we can't be self-congratulatory or complacent about the ways in which we develop the world's future leaders and the ways in which we give teenagers an opportunity to figure things out. The top-down world of specialization that placed a premium on content and the narrow skills of quantitative computation and reading comprehension is moving the way of the dinosaur. Ironically enough, it’s possible that the learning and teaching that is characterized by our Alf Museum’s study of paleontology has helped to shape Webb's forward-looking emphasis on independent, critical thinking and problem solving.

Thoughts?  I'd love to hear from you 

In last week's Washington Post a teacher wrote a letter to the editor that began, "We've been in session for the new school year for five weeks now, but we've only taught for a little over two of those weeks. The rest of the time has been spent testing."  Like a lot of people, I've read about the proliferation of high stakes testing in the US. I've even heard the first-hand horror stories from my own sister who is a New York public school teacher, but somehow that simple opening sentence in that teacher's letter floored me.

The teacher went on to say, "Of course, there is content we want to be sure our students learn, but I want my students to learn how to think, how to be creative, and how to be good citizens. And, that's not what we're doing because that's not what we're testing." The adage, "what's measured is what gets done" could not be more painfully true than it is in classrooms all across our country. Similarly, in The Washingtonian, the cover feature was "The School You Love to Hate," a Fairfax county school that many students will commute for over two hours each morning in order to attend. The problem, of course, isn't that this particular school is good, but that the nearby schools are so weak that families feel compelled to have their sons and daughters travel great distances every day just to get a halfway decent education.

Our recent commitment to "high stakes" testing is deeply troubling, especially because standardized tests measure such a narrow segment of intelligence. It has been firmly established that intelligence is far more complex than what we choose to measure on a standardized test - largely reading comprehension and quantitative skills. These tests of ours reward children who have a knack for language and math and who can regurgitate information. They reveal little about a student's desire to learn, intellectual depth and scope, and they are poor predictors of future success or happiness. What about creative problem solving and innovation? critical thinking? mental agility? observation and self reflection? perseverance? Those skills and habits of mind are far more difficult to quantify, but they are eminently teachable and far more influential in a person's success and happiness. When it comes to what educators are being asked required to test and measure, I'm reminded of one of Einstein's more famous pieces of wisdom: "Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted." The irony can't be lost on anyone.

It is perplexing to me that recent educational reform in the US is mired in standardized testing and high content levels in instruction. This is precisely the kind of education that other leading nations are abandoning. These matters should be of grave concern to parents and employers as well as to educators for they have enormous national and global societal implications. In his book, The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner posits several brutal facts about American education, among them that we have on a 70% high school graduation rate while Denmark has 96%, Japan 93%, and Poland 79%. Furthermore, only one-third of our high school graduates are prepared for college, and 40% of our students who enter college must take remedial courses. It is clear that not enough young American citizens are being taught how to think, how to solve problems, and how to be creative and, as a result, they will not be hired for the best jobs and will be at a great competitive disadvantage as, ultimately, will be our nation as well.

When a teacher guides her students through a problem by using a set of questions designed, researched and analyzed by the students and made tangible in a real life project designed by students working in small groups and presented publicly to peers and adults, that teacher is earning her pay - meager as it may be - and her students are being taught the real skills they need to be educated adults. But when we require that same teacher to devote more than half her time to monitor students who are sitting at their desks filling in bubbles on an answer sheet, not only do she and her students lose, we all lose.

Students, parents, teachers, and many staff members read Tony Wagner's Global Achievement Gap this summer, a common experience of fertile ground we can cultivate.  Although his emphasis is on public education in the United States, his premise, "7 Survival Skills," and his call to action apply to any school that aspires to design and deliver an outstanding education.  Although he references heavily interviews with corporate leaders and college professors, Wagner's book isn't only about how to  prepare students for college and the global corporate world.  I find his challenge to schools and parents to prepare today's students to be active, informed, highly effective citizens at least as compelling.   Among his chief concerns: too much testing, too much testing of the wrong skills and knowledge (or very limited skills and knowledge), parents' and schools' avoidance of controversial subjects, and a general lack of urgency regarding school reform. 

Wagner begins with what Jim Collins calls "the brutal facts."  Among them: the current US high school graduation rate is 70%. The comparable numbers  are 92% in Poland, 93% in Japan, 79% in Italy;  only about 1/3 of high school graduates are ready for college;fewer than 50% of US students who enter college complete a degree, placing the US 10th among industrialized nations;  90% of the highest paying jobs now require post-secondary education.  Bottom line posits Wagner, " students are simply not learning the skills that matter in the 21st century . . . our system of public education is hopelessly outdated."  

Around the world, school reform  is making big news whether it's the UK's goal to rebuild its system within the next 15 years, Abu Dhabi's new schools themed around girls' leadership training, Ireland's commitment to integrating technology  through all primary schools, Singapore's "Thinking Schools; Learning Nation" campaign, or our own "No Child Left Behind" legislation.   To this mix, Wagner adds his "7 Survival Skills" for learning, work, and citizenship and focuses on how American schools must fundamentally rethink and reform the education of our children.

I'm interested in sharing some of my thoughts and hearing yours about Wagner's 21st century skills, about his position on content, assessment, schools that work,  what constitutes an outstanding student educational experience, and, of course, what Webb does and how and why we do it.  Each month I'll blog on one of the seven skills, and I hope you'll comment - beginning today.   Click below to view a couple of interviews  and keynote speeches Tony Wagner has given.  If you haven't read the book, they might persuade you to take a look at it.  If you have read the book, they'll refresh your memory quickly.  

http://www.schoolchange.org/videos/