3 life skills to be a 21st-century citizen

Toon Joosen Art

Hallöchen!, I am @lfeprofe and today I am going to introduce you to 3 Life Skills that we will need to be a 21st-century citizens. These notes will take inspiration from the work of the historian Yuval Noah Harari, so, los geht’s!  

Lately, I have been trying to catch up on some educational topics and the other day I came across chapter 19 (Education) of Noah Harari’s book: “21 lessons for the 21st century”. His words really resonated with me, and I would like to share them with you.

Noah Harari contextualises us in “a world of unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties”. He finds it difficult to predict what the world will be like in 2050. One of his question marks is: What will people be doing for a living? The inability to predict the labour market makes it difficult to know what specific skills people will need to acquire. And that applies directly to us: as teachers, what skills do we need to learn and teach that will meet the challenges of the near future? Paraphrasing the text: let’s not forget that we may soon be educating active 22nd-century citizens.

N. Harari does not seem to be so keen on developing technical skills as much as general-purpose life skills. Linguistic AI tools can either be our allies or adversaries. To be successful professionals in the future, we should integrate Language Learning Education with General Purpose Life Skills. I think a lot of us are already kind of working on it but still, there is a lot of work to do.

Some pedagogical experts seem to highlight the 4 C’s: Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity to build the future learning scenery. However, Harari, introduces us to 3 other useful skills to work on:

        Skill number 1. The ability to make sense of information. Harari says: “the last thing a teacher needs to give to their pupils is more information” since we already have avalanches of it. We need to know how to curate the information and understand it. We need media literacy skills -I would add- to be able to discern (and produce) the right and important information.

        Skill number 2. Adaptability and mental flexibility. “If you try to hold on to some stable identity, job or world view, you risk being left behind as the world flies by you with a whooooosh”. Being curious and open to learning and reinventing ourselves will be crucial to remaining relevant as part of the community.

        Skill number 3. (Self-)awareness. To quote Harari again: “Relying on technology can be a risky gamble. Technology can help you a lot, but if technology gains too much power over your life, you may become a hostage to its agenda”. In the coming decades, knowing ourselves and our human condition will be one of our greatest skills (although it has always been important). Being aware of the world around us and our inner world will be crucial not only personally but also professionally and socially.  

And that was it, those were the main points of chapter 19 of Education in Harari’s book. At the end of this reading, I am left with this question in my mind: How can work on my critical thinking, intercultural competence, media literacy skills, etc.?

Working in all those skills -as a learner and as a teacher- can feel quite overwhelming and a heavy responsibility. For the moment I will look at other texts such as "Teaching Critical Thinking" by Bell Hooks and "The Burnout Society" by Byung-Chul Han. Do you have any recommendations? Feel free to share them :)