Dangerous Mind Games: Are We Ready to Overhaul the Teaching Profession? (Education Outlook‪)‬

A highly qualified teacher in every classroom," "Merit pay for teachers," "Get performance pay right": how can we argue with any of these headlines? We strive to have every one of our students attain high levels of achievement. Many schools in the country accomplish this on a daily basis. Many other exemplary schools "beat the odds" and have great success with populations that include high percentages of children in poverty, of minority ethnicity, and whose native language is not English. But to succeed in the future, we need to move toward twenty-first-century teaching. Twenty-first-century teaching is about the collective work of effective teams of educators focused on the success of individual students. We have learned that schools are complex environments, and learning requires more than the effort of the individual teacher. We must move our thinking to create twenty-first-century teachers, just as we are preparing students who exhibit "twenty-first-century learning" skills and behaviors. Teachers and students must learn and practice the skills required for success in today's world, including collaboration, critical thinking, and communication.