Are my students ready for the 21st century?

I feel that I am pretty equipped to teach 21st century skills. I feel a lot of this comes from myself going to school in the 21st century. There are times I find myself jealous of those teachers who have more experience and seem to be in their teaching groove. This is one thing however I am not jealous of. Some of the veteran teachers are very good at keeping up with this new pace of life. However, some of the teachers still seem to be wondering why when they hit reply all on the email, every single person in the district gets their response. I appreciate that I understand the technology and am able to help my students transition into being better equipped. There are still things that I am learning, often from the students themseleves, but I am capable of following what they are saying. One beautiful thing about the 21st century is that it is requiring change each and every year and I am good with change. Some parents and teachers would say, why are we changing it now, the way we learned as kids worked just as good. These things are changing, because our world is changing. Students need some different skills to survive in today's world!

I feel that my students learn most of the necessary skills before leaving my classroom. I would love to focus more in depth on some of the skills, like financial literacy, but with the state required standards my classrom time is very packed! This is when it is necessary to get creative! You need to incorporate those skills into your lessons. Problem solving is very easy to add into my math classroom. I often have to link those skills and the real world for my students. They don't understand that problem solving skills on a math problem, can still be applied to other problems in their lives, even personal problems. You evaulate the problem, plan an approach, solve, and end up with a solution! One of my weaknesses is being able to link all of the necessary skills in my mathematics class. That is a personal goal I have for my self this year. I do feel that there is a reason that high school students have more than one teacher, because hopefully what ever skills they might not be getting in math class, they are still getting in another class! That way when they graduate from high school, they are a well rounded 21st century skilled person!