Providing Skilled spatial Thinkers

Astrong component of the drive for K-12 educational reform since the 1989 Charlottesville Education Summit has been a concern about the capacity of the American workforce to compete successfully in a context defined by intense international competition in global markets and rapid technological change in the nature of the work process. These concerns are part of the rationale for two of the National Education Goals: Goal 3 ("all students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so that they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our Nations' modem economy") and Goal 6 ("every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship").

The thrust of the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report was that "for most of this century, as this nation took its goods and know-how to the world, America did not have to worry about competition from abroad. At home, the technology of mass production emphasized discipline to the assembly line.

Today, the demands on business and workers are different. Finns must meet world class standards and so must workers." The report emphasized the need to reform American education in order to foster "five competencies which, in conjunction with a three-part foundation of skills and personal qualities, lie at the heart of job performance today. These eight areas represent essential preparation

for all students, both those going directly to work and those planning further education. All eight must be an integral part of every young person's school life." The five competencies included the productive use of resources, interpersonal skills, information, systems, and technology. The skills comprise basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking, and listening), thinking skills, and the diligent application of personal qualities. Taken together, these eight competencies and skills comprise the needed "workplace know-how."

American employers are increasingly concerned about the knowledge and skills of high school graduates. They perceive a mismatch between their needs for a skilled, knowledgeable, and flexible workforce and the products of the K-12 education system. On-the-job training is expensive and disruptive to employers and workers alike. From the perspective of potential workers, the nature of work is changing. Not only am: workers facing greater expectations in terms of knowledge and skills, but they are expected to participate in what is essentially a lifelong learning process.