For the last several generations, the skills needed for "success" have been rather stable and well-known... reading, writing, arithmetic... Daniel Pink calls them linear skills. Basically, score well on the SAT and you are pretty well assured of being a success in business or organizational leadership. Get through high school by being able to follow direction, get to where you need to be on time and complete the assigned academic task, and you will be able to find a job working in one of those businesses or organizations.
(At least that worked for my family-- my father was a truck driver in a Teamster shop, my mother became a bank officer with some education beyond high school. My brother went to college and became a grocery store manager, I became a teacher.)
The times really are changing, however, and that model is begin challenged on many fronts. I cannot be sure my sons (a junior in college and a high school senior) will be able to rely on such a path through life. I read and hear lots about 21st century skill, but the people who seem to have the best advice are those who are arguing that a whole new set of habits of mind are necessary for the innovative and creative thinker and leaders that society needs in the coming decades.
Daniel Pink and his Whole New Mind is one such person...
Steven Hall and Wisdom is another...
This article in EdWeek points to some ideas I had not seen from Howard Gardner that creativity, discipline, synthesis, respect and ethics are ways of knowing appears to be another... along with some other emerging research.
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