Our world is continuously changing, becoming more complex as it evolves rapidly. The environment that our kids will be operating in as they develop will be quite different from this current one.

We live in an increasingly Volatile Uncertain Complex & Ambiguous (VUCA) world.

Volatile

We live in a world that’s constantly changing, becoming more unstable each day, where changes big and small are becoming more unpredictable – and they’re getting more and more dramatic and happening faster and faster. As events unfold in completely unexpected ways, it’s becoming impossible to determine cause and effect.

Uncertain

It’s becoming more difficult to anticipate events or predict how they’ll unfold; historical forecasts and past experiences are losing their relevance and are rarely applicable as a basis for predicting the shape of things to come. It’s becoming nearly impossible to plan for investment, development, and growth as it becomes increasingly uncertain where the route is heading.

Complex

 Our modern world is more complex than ever. What are the reasons? What are the effects? – Problems and their repercussions are more multi-layered, harder to understand. The different layers intermingle, making it impossible to get an overview of how things are related. Decisions are reduced to a tangled mesh of reaction and counter-reaction – and choosing the single correct path is almost impossible

Ambiguous

One size fits all” and “best practice” have been relegated to yesterday – in today’s world it’s rare for things to be completely clear or precisely determinable. Not everything is black and white – grey is also an option. The demands on modern organisations and management are more contradictory and paradoxical than ever, challenging our personal value systems to the core. In a world where the “what” takes a back seat to the “why?” and the “how?”, making decisions requires courage, awareness, and a willingness to make mistakes.

Job opportunities rapidly changing, along with the skills required for success. Child education experts are convinced that the proper development of 21st century competencies begins at an early age – from 18 months of age. This explains why we at the Future Ready Academy are strong advocates of integrating 21st-century skills in young children’s early learning experience.

21st century competencies are an essential topic in modern-day education; some even describe them as the new foundation for learning. Our kids must learn ways of surviving and thriving in an increasingly competitive global scene while collaborating effectively with other children from around the world.

Innovation and creativity will undoubtedly be a highly prized asset, for solving challenges with limited resources and developing new technologies. So how should we equip our children for futuristic jobs?

What 21st Century Skills Do Our Kids Need?

Experts in child education around the world acknowledge that children of today need more than just conventional reading, writing and arithmetic to be prepared for 21st century challenges.
Modern era job candidates ought to have had their collaborative, communication and problem solving abilities developed via SEL. The World Economic Forum in March 2016 released a list of key 21^st century skills. Students are required to have the following lifelong learning skills in the 21^stcentury.

FOUNDATIONAL LITERACIES 
How student apply core-skills to everyday tasks

1. Literary
2. Numeracy
3. ICT Literacy
4. Scientific Literacy
5. Financial Literacy
6. Cultural & Civic Literacy

COMPETENCIES
How students approach complex challenges

1. Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
2.    Creativity
3.    Communication
4. Collaboration

CHARACTER QUALITIES 
How students approach their changing environment

1. Curiosity
2. Initiative
3. Adaptability
4. Grit/Perseverance
5. Leadership
6. Social and Cultural Awareness

Ways of Developing 21st Century Competencies for Today’s Children

EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING
This includes your kid’s sense of self: his/her self-esteem, self-concept, self-efficacy, happiness, locus of control (personality and motivation), and coping skills (stress and emotion).
Emotional well-being influences your child’s ability to cope with and in society. It plays a vital role in the effective interaction of children with their peers and environment and also in the development of their happiness, positive self-esteem, determination, and capacities to work, love, and play.

Ways of developing Emotional well-being:

• Let them make decisions.
• Make time for quality personal interaction with every child; this will help to establish communication lines between parents and children.
• Listen to them, and ask questions; let them become experts too.
• Permit them to participate in planning their daily activities.

SELF-REGULATION
This encompasses attention, self-control, planning, organization, strategy, and memory. It also includes minimizing distractions presented by social media and mobile phones.

With self-regulation, kids can better manage how they experience and express their emotions. Cognitive self-regulation assists children in following set rules and mapping out appropriate actions for different situations; they will listen and understand better when other people are communicating with them.

Ways of developing self-regulation:

• Brainstorm for answers to questions or solutions to problems together.
• Be an ideal self-regulation role model yourself.
• Make sure your child gets the appropriate amount of sleep for their age.
• Support your child’s constructive learning positively. Let him/her participate in activities after-school like sports and enrichment that can shape them for the future.
• Have children exercise regularly.
• Give your kids a variety of balanced high nutrition diets such as fresh vegetables, fruits with low sugar content and home-cooked meals.

CREATIVITY
This skill can be taught, nurtured and enhanced by playful imagination and curiosity.

Creativity is the heartbeat of problem-solving – a creative child tends to be more competent, and better at problem-solving in his/her work and personal life.

Ways of developing creativity;

• Encourage constructive thought by using recycled products to build new structures
• Create theater/art together – write down plots and scripts, act out these scenes and record them
• Photograph/record your child’s creations and display them at home
• Get them to participate in activities where they aren’t being taught in a conventional way, rather they are made to think of creative solution.

At Future Ready Academy, our pedagogy revolves around training kids to think creatively.

CRITICAL THINKING (Asking questions like “how” and “why”) –
All manner of information sources, perspectives – and untruths – are in circulation around us nowadays.

Social media complicates things further by making discerning real news from false information more challenging. It also turns everybody with access to social media feeds into potential broadcasters. The power of such technology could yield positive results. However, it could also be damaging in the wrong hands.

Children need to develop critical thinking and discernment skills quickly; this helps them to engage in meaningful discourse, with creativity, and developed core values.

Start Developing Your Child’s 21st-Century Skills Today

Teach your children the core values that you were raised with, but also guide their development of 21st-century competencies — excellent communication, planning skills, and organization, critical thinking abilities, global awareness, and exposure to technology – these will help them to achieve success beyond just grades, and prepare them well for the future in a Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous world.

If you’d like to know more about we can help your kids develop 21^st century skills, reach out to us and we will be happy to assist you.