New Dialogue for Our Children's Future: Wagner's Essential Questions

While new assessments would have an impact, Tony Wagner ends his book The Global Achievement Gap by recommending a new dialogue that begins with this admission: I thought I knew what students needed to learn and what a good school looks like—because I was a student once and I went to school and it worked for me. But times have changed. And maybe students today do need something different. I wonder what it is?

He proposes these essential questions for all of us:

• In light of the fundamental changes that have taken place in our society in the last twenty-five years, what does it mean to be an educated adult in the twenty-first century? What do we think all high school graduates need to know and be able to do to be well-prepared for college, careers, and citizenship? And since we can't teach everything, what is most important?


• How might our definition of academic rigor need to change in the age of the information explosion?


• What are the best ways to know that students have mastered the skills that matter most? How do we create a better assessment and accountability system that gives us the information we need to ensure that all students are learning essential skills?


• What do we need to do in our schools to motivate students to be curious and imaginative and to enjoy learning for its own sake? How do we ensure that every student has an adult advocate in his or her school who knows the student well?


• How do we both support our educators and hold them more accountable for results? What changes are needed in how educators are trained, how they work together in schools, and how they are supervised and evaluated in order to enable them to continuously improve?


• What do good school look like—schools where all students are mastering the skills that matter most? How are they different from the schools we have, and what can we learn from them?