Hitting a Moving Target

Education in the 21st century amounts to attempting to hit a moving target.  In January 2007, Scott McLeod released a video (an edit of Karl Fisch's video) called Did You Know?  In it, he stated that the top 20 jobs in 2010 would be things that didn't exist in 2004.  An article in the Sunday Daily Oklahoman confirmed that this was true in Oklahoma.  "As a new decade begins, Oklahomans are toiling at jobs that weren’t around 10 years ago, and adapting to modifications to others that have evolved significantly along with advances in technology."  So how do we educate students for jobs that we can't even imagine?  The answer is really very simple...we give them the skills necessary to be life-long learners!

A great number of those skills fall under the loose heading of "information literacy" - how to locate, evaluate, and apply relevant information.  Who teachers information literacy in your school?  In the average public school, the answer is the library media specialist.  There are several problems, however, with this scenario.

First, in Oklahoma during the last school year, 45% of schools did not have a full-time library media specialist.  Even if a school does have a full-time person in this position, he or she is responsible for teaching information literacy skills to the entire student body.  In addition to doing this, of course, he or she is also creating a love for reading; introducing students to new books; buying materials for the library media center, processing and shelving them; circulating materials; collaborating with teachers and providing resources for them; doing public relations for the library (and often the school); and accomplishing a myriad of other duties.

To prepare students for a future that is changing as I write, we must ensure that they are digitally literate.  In order to do this, we must ensure that all schools have a certified library media specialist who can provide the leadership to meet this goal.  Teachers must also, however, be willing to work with the library media specialist and to reinforce information literacy in their daily lessons. 

Ensuring that our students are prepared for the 21st century is a tough job, but it is one we can achieve if we all work together.