The Real 21st Century Skills

The question of so-called "21st Century Skills" has been subject to hot debate in education circles recently; you can read Elena Silva's thoughtful take here, a more skeptical perspective in a recent U.S. News & World Report column from Andy Rotherham here, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills web site, hostility to the whole idea live-blogged by Fordham here, and more. It's a tricky set of questions, whether new skills are really needed for the current era, whether they should properly be thought of as distinct from so-called "basic" skills, etc. Fortunately, we need worry about those questions no longer, because it's hard to imagine a more definitive dialogue than this: