When did he become professional?

How does it happen that one day your kid is just a doodling kid and then he starts to turn out work that looks absolutely professional?

Art by Brady Johnson. Download pdf of full layout here.

Blue Skunk readers get the pleasure of seeing some of Brady's drawings each time they view this site. The skunks in the 30 or so different headings that rotate every couple weeks are all his work, some of the originals now over eight years old. Brady's work has also graced the cover of KnowledgeQuest conference editions a couple times (2009) (2011) - thanks to Sara Kelly Johns. He did the illustrations for my book School Libraries Head for the Edge - which has sold in the dozens of copies.

But seeing the drawing above - an college art class assignment that required a Ray Bradbury poem to be illustrated -  has gotten me really excited about revising and updating Brady's and my first collaboration effort from 2004 Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. The text will probably still be lame, but the illustrations will be great!

A better name than 21st Century Skills?

Nathan Mielke on his Be of Use blog echoes a complaint I've long had:

...I am soooooooo sick of hearing about 21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, 21st Century ad nauseam. Isn't there a better way to phrase this for everyday conversation? Perhaps we need to stick with this so everyone hears consistent jargon, but I don't think people overall have the right idea of what it means. I would imagine if we polled our staff or parents they would say its technology or computer skills. That couldn't be further from the truth. If I say higher order thinking skills I think that's pretty clear (at least to me) of what that means. I worry 21st Century means the Jetsons or Star Trek to all too many people.

He goes on to suggest Tony Wagner's term survival skills. Hmmmm, I was sort of hoping my school's grads would not just survive, but thrive. Thrival skills? Way too cute.

A dozen years ago, I used the term "Knowledge Worker Skills" and attempted to describe them. (This was shortly after being terrified by Friedman's book The World is Flat. While "knowledge worker skills" has more of a vocational ring to it than I'd like (these should be whole life - not just work - skills), it's more descriptive than "21st Century Skills."

Johnson’s Hierarchy of “Knowledge Worker Skills”

So what's the best term to use for this set of skills that are now important for everyone to master if they are to be employed and employable in a post-industrial economy? Where problem-solving, creativity, and initiative are the new "basic" skills? 

Or will 21st Century Sklils be with us until, oh, 2200? 

Harsh? Your policy on computer accidents?

Here's a e-mail question I got this week:

Ethical/upkeep senario for you. Teacher has a laptop from school. The teacher knocks water onto the keyboard zappying the logic board. My boss is charging the teacher for the repair. The teacher is burning my boss in effigy in front of everyone in that school for the charge. I think my boss is in line. Just wondering how you would handle it. Are we too harsh here?

And my response:

As mad as it sometimes makes me, I try to take the high road and accept accidents happen to everyone. We always assume that professionals take professional care of equipment and repair without question. At least the first time (or two.)

What do you think? Any good rules of thumb for who pays for repairs in your school? If a teacher got into an accident with a school vehicle would he/she be responsible for repairs? Is saving a dollars in a repair budget worth engendering ill will from the entire teaching staff?