What are key life skills for 21st century?

Learning to learn, learning to think, learning to be... these are some of the key life skills for success in the 21st century. But 'yearning to learn' is a timeless lifeskill. (6:21 mts)

Life skills for success in the 21st century

Are a different set of life skills required for success in the 21st century?

The Thinking Ladder

The Thinking Ladder

In the Bloom’s Taxonomy, Knowledge, Comprehension and Application can be considered as Basic Thinking skills and Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation can be considered as higher order thinking skills.

Here is how I think the thinking skills ladder looks like:

Steps in the Thinking Ladder

1. Basic Information Processing: Observing, Classifying, Sequencing, Comparing, Contrasting

2. Complex Information Processing: Interpretation, Extrapolation, Evaluation

3. Logical Reasoning and Deriving Inference

4. Argument Analysis
a. Arguments you make (or power of Influence)
b. Arguments made to you (that you need to analyze)
Argument Analysis includes analyzing claims, assumptions, evidence, fact, belief, emotion, fallacies, credibility of the source, bias, counter-argument

5. Problem Solving
a. Recognising a problem, being able to represent a problem, thinking of alternatives, choosing optimal alternative, executing a solution, evaluating the solution

6. Synthesis (Interesting description of synthesizing skills - Howard Gardner, ‘The Synthesizing Mind’ from his book, ‘Five Minds for the Future’)

7. Decision Making
Reflection: making up your mind not on an impulse but after considering – perceptions, assumptions, alternatives and consequences

8. Self-introspection
a. How to think independently
b. Thinking for self-awareness

9. Creative Thinking

a. In-depth knowledge of a domain (Howard Gardner’s thoughts on ‘Creative Mind’ in his book ‘Five Minds for the Future’); 10,000 hours of deliberate practice leads to expertise

b. Focusing on areas where you have High Skill and High Challenge leads to a mental state of ‘Flow’ and also to happiness (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book, ‘Flow’)

c. Traits of a creative person (Guy Claxton’s work)

d. Individual Creativity and Creativity in Teams (Malcolm Galdwell’s lecture on ‘Genius’ at New Yorker Conference)

e. Lateral Thinking (Edward de Bono)

10. Thinking about your thinking
a. Strength and Weakness analysis
b. How to improve your thinking

#Learning to Be

From an agrarian age we moved to the age of information, then to the age of knowledge and now we are in the age of intelligence. What next? My take, ‘age of wisdom’!

I think ‘learning to be’ is probably THE most important timeless life skill. In its connotation it is similar to the inscription at Oracle of Delphi, ‘Know Thyself’ (the second, not so popular inscription at Oracle of Delphi, ‘everything in moderation’ is also equally timeless).

‘Learning to be’ implies having a better understanding of self – self-image, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-motivation and self-responsibility.

Understanding emotions, especially what the Buddhists call the three poisons of the mind – hatred/anger, craving and ignorance is critical to understanding of self.


According to Indian scriptures (Taittireeya Upanishad) humans have five layers of consciousness – anna, prana, manas vijnana, anand i.e. material, man, mind, intelligence and tranquility of spirit or bliss. ‘Learning to be’ is learning to live a blissful life that comes from a tranquil spirit or an equanimous mind.

Buddhism advocates that the anti-dote to the three poisons of the mind is acquisition of an ever compassionate and empathetic mind, which can be achieved through meditation, where meditation is training of the mind. Compassion and empathy are critical for ‘learning to be’.

A tranquil spirit does not mean inaction. It means intelligent or wise action and plenty of it.

‘Panchtantra’ a compendium of stories from ancient India, is a storybook of ‘niti-shastra’. ‘Niti’, roughly translated means, ‘the wise conduct of life’. Panchtantra stories advocate that a life of joy is built on three pillars – resolute, yet circumspect action, winning and keeping good friends and, worthy exercise of intelligence.

Panchtantra stories are excellent material for honing your ‘learning to be’ skills!

In my own endeavour towards ‘learning to be’ I personally find a Sanskrit shloka from the Indian scripture ‘Bhagwad Geeta’ most meaningful. “Karmanye Vadhikaraste Maa Phaleshu Kadachana”, which means, “perform action without worrying about the reward”.

To this I would add that action should be guided by good intentions.

I complete agree with the author Philip Pullman, who in his trilogy, ‘His Dark Materials’ writes something to the effect (don’t remember the exact words), ‘the universe is all about intentions’.

So take a deep dive with-in, master your emotions, check your intentions, take resolute action, don’t worry about the outcome, remain compassionate and empathetic and you will have a blissful life. You would have learnt to be.

#TLS – Musing about Thinking-2

Edward de Bono distinguishes between ‘what is’ or judgment type of thinking with ‘what can be’ type of thinking. He coined the term ‘Lateral Thinking’ and advocates that ‘what can be’ type of thinking is imperative for ‘designing’ the future.

Lateral thinking is ‘idea creativity’ and is thinking that is concerned with changing ideas, perception and concepts. It is different from Artistic Creativity.

Edward de Bono explains Lateral Thinking by drawing a parallel with being stuck on a one-way street and figuring out a way of going in another direction. This is the same construct as that of humour (punch line in a joke is like going in a new direction, after being stuck on a one way street).

A very creative gentleman I know, while mostly agreeing with Edward de Bono, finds using the word ‘lateral’ for thinking a bit confining. He observes that if we believe 'Creative Thinking' does not clearly distinguish between 'idea creativity' and 'artistic creativity' then ‘Circular Thinking’ is a better descriptor because thinking by nature should go in all directions.

Going from A to B to C to D is logic and jumping from A to D is magic, Creative Thinking is generally construed as magic. That is, it is considered a leap of insight that only people with a crazy hairdo or whacky dress sense can have!

My take is that Creative Thinking is not a black box, the conventional idea of ‘genius’. It is a skill that can be acquired and honed.

My personal experience is that an urge to understand ‘first principles’ fosters creativity. E.g. say there is a ‘rate this article’ feature on a website. A deeper understanding reveals that this is really a ‘filter’ to help us sift through ‘the long tail’ of content on the web.

It is a feature that captures ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and helps users search for ‘relevance’ and ‘trust’ most ‘efficiently’ (i.e. helps users find content that is relevant to them in their given context, with least time, and since fellow users are recommending it, such recommendations are more trustworthy than say the author or the publisher recommending it). With this deeper understanding we can think of alternate, creative solutions that may be more effective than ‘Rate this Article’ feature.

The creative process thus starts with the ‘ability to wonder’ to be ‘inquisitive’ and the effort to understand first principles helps in fostering thinking of alternatives.

In his lecture at TED, Ken Robinson explains why he thinks creativity is as important as literacy, how every kid has creative talent but that the system (school, parents, society…) squander it and how you have to be prepared to be wrong if you want to do something creative. He defines creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. His lecture can be viewed here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

My 8 years old son has recently started learning how to play the Violin. He is finding it challenging and perhaps to share his anxiety, he told us that he is going to write a story about this boy who could not play the Violin right and hence was asked to leave the school orchestra. On hearing this, like all good parents, my wife and I told him, "So the boy practiced and practiced and he was accepted back in the orchestra."

Later, in his Ideas Diary, where he jots down outlines for stories he would like to write, we found that rest of the story was same but for, “… the boy was asked to leave the school orchestra. So he started a new band and called it ‘Wrong Notes’…”

Our son is more ready for Education 2.0 than his parents are!

#TLS – Musing about Thinking-1

Why Thinking Skills = To Solve a Problem or to Take a Decision (or even to think of a new Problem!)

Thinking = Being aware of, and challenging our inherent Assumptions / Perceptions + Figuring out Alternatives + Weighing Alternatives + Choosing Optimal Alternative

Being Aware of, and Challenging Assumptions/Perceptions + Finding Alternatives = Creative Thinking

Weighing Alternatives (i.e. analysis, judgment etc) = Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking skills, I think, can be viewed from three perspectives.

First is the Logical Reasoning type of Critical Thinking, which is often a part of school curriculum on which students are tested. This skill is also useful for solving puzzles and riddles.

Example: There is a river. There are four men who want to cross it. They see a boy and a girl playing in a rowboat. The boat can hold either two children or one adult. Can the men cross the river? How?

Second type of Critical Thinking skills go beyond logical reasoning and cover analysis and argumentation.

Cambridge and Oxford Universities test candidates on this type of critical thinking skills – what is the key assumption in an argument, is it a fallacious argument, identify the counter argument and such like. (Cambridge Thinking Skills Assessment Test info is here: http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/tsacambridge).

Several entrance exams test candidates on similar Critical Thinking skills and in UK there is an AS and A-level course on Critical Thinking Skills, which also covers similar topics. (http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/subjects/critical_thinking/index.aspx)

‘Thinking Skills’ by John Butterworth and Geoff Thwaites is a good book to prepare for such exams.

Open University UK (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1644&topic=all)and Hong Kong University (http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/) offer free online courses on this type of Critical Thinking skills.

The third type of critical thinking skills (or an important area of application of critical thinking skills), in my opinion, is ‘the journey within’. That is, Understanding self, understanding emotions, understanding relationships…

In their book, ‘Art of Happiness’, Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler note that, “Happiness has little to do with absolute conditions, rather it is a function of how we perceive our situation”, and, “Our mind is the only equipment we need to achieve complete happiness.”

Parts of the book ‘Developing Critical Thinkers’ by Stephen D. Brookfield make interesting reading for this aspect or application of critical thinking skills. Rest, of course, is introspection!

Next, musings on Creative Thinking.

#TLS - Learning to Think

UNESCO's Report on education for the 21st century titled 'Learning - The Treasure Within' says that education throughout life is based upon four pillars – ' Learning to Know', 'Learning to Do', 'Learning to Live Together' and 'Learning to Be'. 
(UNESCO Report http://www.unesco.org/delors/)

I am of the opinion ‘Learning to Think’ is a very important constituent of ‘Learning to Know’. There are two schools of thought on learning how to think. One school believes that ‘thinking’ by itself cannot be taught and it has to be embedded into a curriculum. Say improving thinking skills through the study of science, history or literature. The other school of thought believes that thinking skills can be taught directly.

I subscribe to the latter school of thought. I think learning interventions can be adopted to improve thinking skills. A deeper understanding of how thinking works helps improve thinking skills.

For example, Edward de Bono explains that perception and not logic is at the root of faulty solutions. I.e. how we interpret a problem is based on our inherent assumptions and mostly this starting point of interpretation itself is wrong. The logic that follows may be absolutely sound but since the initial understanding or interpretation of the situation or problem is wrong the final solution is often flawed. Hence, Edward de Bono suggests many tools like PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) and C&S (Consequences & Sequels) that direct attention and help us validate our assumptions or perception.

No doubt learners need a context to help them improve their thinking skills but that context need not only be subjects taught in the curriculum, the context can be anything that is relevant and interesting for learners. It could be a business problem, a social problem or simply how can a kid convince his parents to increase his pocket allowance.

Thinking skills are especially important in today’s world where there is a deluge of information because only through deep thinking can we derive insights from information.

Improving thinking skills has also become imperative because our problems today have become complex. Complicated problems are difficult to solve but have a unique solution, like a jigsaw puzzle. But complex problems are not only difficult to solve, they don’t have a unique solution. As influencing factors change the solution needs to be adapted. Like, the game of Chess, or global warming, poverty, financial crisis, terrorism, or a new business idea.

I would divide thinking skills into two broad categories – Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking and in my next post I will share my musings on these two aspects of thinking.