21st-Century Skills

Organising is the key to becoming a critical thinker. We’re talking 21st-century skills here. Critical thinking, creativity, cooperation and collaboration underpin or should underpin modern teaching and learning.

The concept that ties the Four C’s together is organising. For instance: 

• Ask questions of data and information (questions that require more than Yes/No)

• Group situations/data/information points that are alike

• Compare and contrast

• Summarise

• Separate situations/data/information points that are unalike 

• Build and construct

• Discard and dispense

• Predict

• Infer

• Combine and record

• Hypothesise

The list is practically endless. The skills apply regardless of age. Kindergarteners may not use those skills in what we’d call a formal manner, but they use them. 

They’re not aware they’re doing it. A child who paints a picture makes truckloads of organisational design decisions about colour, shape, and texture. 

Story? Most kids verbalise while painting. And, let’s face it, their painting is a design of their creation, maybe not on the scale of the design of the Sydney Opera House, but no less valid. 

Oh, and the same thought processes went into both creations. Organising for us is almost second nature. Look through the list above and identify a situation where you’ve used at least one. 

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