– 21st Century Skills
For decades, the emphasis in public education has been on making sure that students can read, write, and do math. But can they apply those skills in a real-world scenario, such as designing a bridge? Can they identify what information they need and use digital tools to find it?
Those are some of the capabilities known as "21st-century skills" – what everyone from CEOs to President-elect Obama says that today's students need for their fast-changing future.
In a knowledge economy, the reasoning goes, the ability to articulate and solve problems, to generate original ideas, and to work collaboratively across cultural boundaries is growing exponentially in importance.
While travel study tours, such as Global Awareness Seminars, inherently help students learn to problem-solve and think in original ways, their real strength lies in providing the opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration as mentioned above.
A Global Awareness Seminar participant – by nature – is inquisitive, motivated, and academically inspired. While Workshops programming does not mandate it, we imagine that students who travel with us begin their international educational experience long before stepping on a plane.
Perhaps they use “digital tools” to research their destination. Perhaps they use open-source networking to chat about travel tips and international flights. Perhaps they find local language groups for practice in a non-native tongue. Perhaps they ask if they can report on their summer experience in lieu of some assigned project during the school year. Perhaps they present their experiences – photos, gifts, language, and all – to their classroom back home as a way to teach others while still in school themselves.
Any and all of these examples fall in line with the “21st Century” skills required of the first generation born Global. So do the Five Objectives of Service Learning, Cultural Understanding, Environmental Stewardship. A Day in the Life, and Citizen Exchange woven into each Global Awareness Seminar (click here for more on our Educational Objectives).
Technical skills are available to everyone these days. The ability to connect people remains a rare talent reserved for the select, willing, and passionate.
As such, Global Awareness Seminars hope to provide one opportunity above all else to today’s young learners: the chance to take a unique experience and run as far with it as they can. Everyone at Workshops – from interns to program administrators to directors –believes in this opportunity and the fundamental ability of educational travel to share this opportunity with students from across the world.