We often talk about the “core curriculum” as the center of our education system, the most essential content for students to master in order to be prepared for their futures. For most, it includes English / language arts, math, science, and social science. Many support inclusion of multilingualism, the arts, and career-technical education.
With the advances of the past century, isn’t it time to re-evaluate what is “core”? What competencies do young people need to face future challenges? How can they be the drivers of their own learning? Why is it so difficult to change legacy thinking?
Our education system is separated into, and organized around, these discreet “core” subject areas. They are the basis for students’ class schedules, schools’ departmental structures, teachers’ credentials, and universities’ admissions requirements. They are the focus of student report cards, state standards, standardized tests, tutoring programs, and accountability measures.
A New North Star for the Future of Education
Yet, over the past decade, when hundreds of school districts across the country have engaged their communities to develop a “Portrait of a Graduate” by asking their community members what skills, competencies, and mindsets are most essential for young people to be successful, they do not list the core subject areas at the top. Rather, they say that students should be creative and critical thinkers, effective communicators and collaborators, self-directed lifelong learners, culturally-competent and globally-aware citizens, technically and financially literate, empathetic and adaptable, resilient and responsible, and kind and curious. This represents a more holistic and integrated approach to teaching and learning. In fact, a recent Battelle for Kids report (June 2024) and a California report by WestEd (2023) verified that these competencies are most frequently cited in districts’ Portraits of a Graduate; the academic content areas fell further down the list.
For decades, employers have identified a similar set of competencies as critical for success in the workplace. While colleges and universities tend to default to core content requirements, when pressed they agree that the same competencies are critical for a young person’s success in post secondary education. And, wouldn’t we all want informed and productive citizens to embrace these skills? Are they not core?
These ideas are not new. Nearly 20 years ago, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills created the P21 Framework, often simplified by practitioners to “the 4Cs” — collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.
Balancing the Tried and True with the Need for New
My goal is not to establish an either/or argument, but rather to suggest a rebalancing for current and future generations. Granted, much of our society still stands behind “the three R’s” — reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmatic — and will argue until blue in the face that these skills are most essential. They are! Yet, in this day and age, when information is available at our fingertips 24/7 and AI can organize that information in coherent ways, what should we consider as core?
Content will always be central to our schools. If we were to formally elevate the importance of the 4Cs, and even organize around them, students still would have to think critically about something, collaborate around something, and communicate something. That “something” is the content, and teachers can (and should) be creative about how to integrate key standards. But, what would it look like if we were to rebalance the priorities?
We wouldn’t have to look far to find examples of small, but significant shifts. Several school districts have modified their elementary report cards to reflect their Portrait of a Graduate outcomes. In order to graduate, an increasing number of districts require students to demonstrate their Portrait outcomes through senior projects, portfolio defenses, or capstone interviews. Anaheim UHSD (CA) employs coaches at each of their 20 school sites to help teachers integrate their 5C skills (5Cs = 4Cs + compassion) into everyday lessons and projects.
District efforts to rebalance the priorities of our education system — by creating a graduate profile and working to operationalize it — have been underway for well over a decade, but progress has been slow because leadership in many states (i.e., department of education, board of education, legislature, and governor’s office) have been slow to incentivize, encourage, and/or support local efforts through funding and policy. That said, more and more states are beginning to do so.
Opportunities for the Future
What might it look like if formal structures existed to intentionally prioritize a new core set of competencies? For example, what if students could earn digital badges for their demonstration of the 4Cs, to be used as portable credentials for college admission and employment? What if teachers could earn micro credentials for the effective teaching of the “4Cs”? What if the state’s data and accountability systems captured student progress on the 4Cs? In more creative and less formalized applications, what if field trips, after school and summer programs centered on 4C skill development? What if administrators selected the teacher-of-the-month based on impressive 4C instruction? What if foundations awarded scholarships and/or students voted on the homecoming court based on student demonstration of the 4Cs?
Recently, I facilitated a team of educators and community members working to implement their “graduate profile”. When I asked the father of a Latina 12th grader whether he thought the traditional transcript or the Portrait of a Graduate most reflected what his daughter needed for her future success, he pointed to the Portrait.
—
Post written by Roman Stearns
Roman Stearns is a founding member of the Human Intelligence movement. He is the founder and executive of Scaling Student Success, a California partnership dedicated to educating the whole child, leveraging the power and potential of a Graduate Profile (or Portrait of a Graduate) to drive transformational change toward a system of education that increasingly is student-centered, equitable, and competency-based.