The 21st Century Student

Bill Ferriter at the Tempered Radical has a vignette on the "Elusive 21st Century Student", describing a student that, given a topic like all other students, still pushes himself past the regular curriculum and chooses for himself a venue that's both challenging and authentic. A good illustration of the student we seek to develop in our classrooms.

However, there is an even better nugget in Gilbert Halcrow's comment for the post:

Are not these attributes more to do with an individuals desire to understand, communicate and to collectively solve problems? Hasn’t the problem really been that the ‘production line model’ of education did not serve those strong and natural desires in young people?

Technology is like the archaeologist’s tools (sometimes sable brush, sometime dynamite) removing the dirt to rediscover an ancient masterpiece.

Any discussion about the 21st Learner should focused on what the masterpiece might look like; rather than the tools used to clean the centuries away.