The Blue Skunk does a nice turn here. After reading the below, pop on over to the Blue Skunk and add your embellishments to his Bullshit Literacy list. Thanks, Blue Skunk! Like all true artists, you have turned lemons (or bullshit) into something of value for others, without diminishing your pain and anger.

Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog – Blue Skunk Blog – Bullshit Literacy:

New Media Consortium Global Imperative: the Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit joins a couple others, including NCREL (Learning Point) eGauge 21st Century Skills and Partnership for 21st Century Skills, excoriating we simple educators for not doing an adequate job of preparing this current batch of kiddies for the big bad work world of the future.

If current employment trends continue, it looks like about 90% of our students will work for Wal-Mart where the most important job skills are:
– Looking good in a day-glow vest
– Passing drug screenings
– Living on the minimum wage, not getting ill, and coping with the relatives who are wiling to take them in.

For the other 10% of the workforce, their single, salient marketable skill will be knowing how to bullshit. (See professor Frankfurt’s definition above.) When, then, are the responsible think tanks going to call summits and issue papers addressing this serious gap in our schools’ curricula?