ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the eight principles of effective education for the 21st century in more detail and presents concrete examples to illustrate them. All examples are based on authentic classroom and school practice, which shows that the kind of 21st-century education that is guided by the aforementioned principles is not a far-fetched ideal concocted by a bunch of progressive pedagogues who have lost touch with the real-life concerns of practitioners. Most of the time, teachers in action combine different educational principles and approaches, rather than slavishly sticking to one particular method. Education that starts from the questions that students find interesting and challenging may raise energy-for-learning levels considerably. Students of low socio-economic status who are enrolled in the vocational strands of secondary education are overrepresented among the young adults leaving school without basic literacy levels. Subject-based education also has serious disadvantages in the light of students’ learning needs and their development of 21st-century competences.
