This important contribution to the future of education, by bestselling author and renowned cognitive scientist Allan Collins, proposes a school curriculum that will fit the needs of our modern era. Offering guidelines for deciding what is important to learn in order to become a knowledgeable person, a good citizen, a thoughtful worker, and a valuable friend in the 21st century, Collins considers the qualities needed for a healthy and productive life. Taking a close look at how advances in technology, communication, and the dissemination of information are reshaping the world, this volume examines how schools can foster flexible, self-directed learners who will succeed in the modern workplace. A concluding chapter presents a broad new vision for how schools can be redesigned to teach the kinds of knowledge and skills students will need in an increasingly complex society and global world.

Book Features

• Identifies global trends and their implications for what we should be teaching our children.
  
• Explains how schools are teaching an outdated curriculum.
  
• Proposes a radical revision of the math and science curriculum.
  
• Describes how literacy is changing in the digital age.

“Novel and revolutionary, this book is a much-needed wake-up call for imaginatively rethinking what education needs to become in this complex, networked, and radically contingent world.”
—From the Foreword by John Seely Brown, visiting scholar and advisor to the provost, University of Southern California

“Every book club, city council, school board, parent group, and teacher research network should dedicate time toward reading this book.”
—Shirley Brice Heath, professor emerita of English and linguistics, Stanford University

“What are the powerful ideas that will allow students to live lives of meaning and fulfillment? This book helps us imagine what this kind of education would look like.”
—Janet Kolodner, chief learning scientist, Concord Consortium, and professor emerita of computer science, Georgia Tech