Recently, I met with a leader in Lancaster County public education. He graciously had agreed to talk with our board of governors concerning preparing kids for global competition. He made a great presentation. Interestingly, he pointed out some facts that are quite frightening. He admitted that he is preparing kids for jobs that do not exist yet (i.e., the economy is changing so rapidly that the jobs that our 9^th graders will be doing are in industries that have not yet come into being). Because of this, the technical, vocational approach to education is being questioned in some thoughtful corners of public education.  (In others, kids are still being heavily tracked into vocational fields—which is a bad idea.)

So, if you are not going to train students for jobs what do you do? He has developed a list of “21st Century Skills.” What are they you ask? They are things like: critical thinking ability, an understanding of world history, the ability to persuade, problem solving skills and leadership skills. There are others. As I surveyed the list, I thought that it was interesting that many of the skills were exactly what we are teaching in classical Christian education. They are on a search for…Logic and Rhetoric. Classical Christian Education, of course, rejects a vocational approach to education and instead gives students the skills of learning, so that they can fulfill any vocation into which God calls them. It is interesting that in public education they might be starting to see the value of classical education.