Education Week | The four Cs are the essential skills for 21st century kids

As education zooms into the digital era, do you wonder if the 20th-century educational mindset remains relevant for your kids? Does education suitably prepare today's students for success in the modern world?

All parents want to provide their children with the best education.

In 2002, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills began looking at the skills students needed to be successful citizens.

It identified four essential skills called the Four Cs.

The main components of the Four Cs are critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration.

Everyone needs these skills to succeed in today's world of work.

These skills are important to have on their own.

In combination, they enable students to solve their own problems, work together, and develop solutions.

Parents need to encourage their children to develop in all of these areas to be successful in school and beyond. Today's students are encouraged to ask questions and apply their findings in active learning environments.

What's the key to the Four Cs?

In high-achieving roles, critical thinking is a much-respected skill. It is vital in an information-driven society where individuals must quickly sift through the array of information to make decisions and find solutions.

Part of critical thinking is problem-solving, asking 'why?' or working through activities that challenge the brain. Because we can access information at the click of a button, a large part of successful critical thinking is to be able to look at information and decide if it is credible or not.

Looking at the big picture, creativity is at the root of progression. Without creativity, there would be no books, no cars, no medical breakthroughs, and no space missions. It's a skill that calls for curiosity, abstract thought, innovation and empathy.

Creativity is trying new approaches to get things done, innovation, and invention. Instead of just painting a picture, you can animate it or arrange a piece of music on a computer without ever learning how to play an instrument. All that said, it's still up to you to put things through the creative process.

Effective communication skills are highly valued. However, with the changing nature of literacy, sharing thoughts, questions, ideas and solutions in ways others can understand is now essential to 21st-century life. Children need to know and understand that communication comes in many forms. It is, of course, speaking verbally, but it can also be non-verbal (hand gestures, facial expressions, etc).

In a world where customer relationships are critical and immediate, communication is far more complex, requiring negotiation across many platforms. Employees need to understand, listen, empathise and communicate in different languages and across several continents. Today's students must be capable of clear, concise writing and effectively using new modes of communication such as video and multimedia tools.

As we live in an increasingly digital world, it is also critical to teach children the best ways of navigating digital spaces responsibly.

Due to globalisation and the rise of technology, collaboration has become critical to 21st-century success. Teamwork is essential to achieving today's significant work. In many cases, those teams are global.

Most career paths require people to work together in some capacity. Kids should learn how to problem solve and tackle issues in which the bigger picture involves more than just themselves.

It can be especially difficult for younger children to acknowledge and accept someone else's perspective. However, learning to build on one another's knowledge and expertise involves respect, listening, and contributing.

The Four Cs go hand-in-hand. Children who wish to succeed in their future should be equipped in all four areas.