Perhaps it is a product of New Zealand’s geographic isolation, which creates concern not to be left behind. But since moving here from England my education hogwash-o-meter has been reading unusually high.  

While the 21^st century skills craze hit England, and fairly rapidly shuffled-on like a Furby in a Pokemon-hunt, in New Zealand there remains much excitement and unhelpful teacher-bashing in the name of educating for the future.

The argument goes something like this. The future is highly uncertain. Therefore, we must stop teaching students knowledge that might become outdated, and instead teach generic skills so they can adapt and survive.

The reality of course is that skills are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge stored in long-term memory. But knowledge is hard-work to learn, and some of it – like times tables, scales, rules of grammar and punctuation – can be a little bit boring, especially for children raised on a diet of burger rings and television.

So nowadays, thanks to the influence of the education futurologists, a teacher’s value lies not in their superior subject knowledge, or their passion and ability to impart the joys of factorising quadratics to unsuspecting teenagers. Rather, teaching today is all about developing whiz-bang 21^st century skills, through a curriculum that’s personalised, relevant and engaging.

I don’t know about you, but when I was at school I found the debate over how long I could spend on the phone each evening highly relevant, and my older brothers’ friends oddly engaging. However, luckily for me, my teachers cared less for their students’ caprices, and instead got on with teaching their knowledge-rich subjects.

However nowadays, for a teacher to stay on top, it’s all aboard the 21^st century skills express train! No matter that there is no evidence skills are transferable. No matter that cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham tells us “the ability to think critically …… depends on domain knowledge and practice.”

Because 21^st century skills are engaging, future-focused and innovative. And innovation equals, of course, progress.

Finally, in case you’re wondering what is meant by 21^st century skills, the list commonly covers all those skills in which most of you Insight readers are, by accident of age, so evidently deficient; things like the ability to think critically, to persevere, to solve problems and relate to others.

In all frankness, you and your generation are a write-off. But hooray for New Zealand’s innovative future, and all the un-evidenced hogwash it will bring.