Southwest Junior High School eighth-graders Berkleigh Wright, right, and Olivia Schonwise work through an assignment for Sally Landoll’s class on how theme songs are used to enhance movies.

Children today are growing up in an ever-changing and fast-paced world, and that affects the classroom, too.

The latest trend for education is making sure students pick up 21st-century learning skills and getting prepared for what may face them in the workplace.

“It’s a technology-driven world, and it’s changing incredibly quickly,” says Patrick Kelly, the fine arts, career and technical education curriculum specialist for Lawrence public schools. “There’s these intangibles that we know are required for the workplace that maybe aren’t getting the attention that they should get in our curriculum.”

Kansas is one of 10 states working with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The education world wants to make sure students graduate high school with the ability to be creative and innovative, solve problems and think critically, and be able to communicate and collaborate effectively.

“Your writing skills are critical, even though we are in this land of Internet and e-mail and texting,” says Sally Landoll, a communications teacher at Southwest Junior High School. “There’s still a lot of etiquette that should be followed.”

While teaching the core subjects is obviously the main goal of any school district, the challenge now is to ingrate these 21st century skills into any class.

“In history class, it might be students making their own films,” Kelly says. “That’s using information media technology in a creative and innovative way.”

With all the information floating out there in today’s world, Landoll says a key component of grasping 21st century skills is being able to separate good information from the bad.

“They’re (kids) are used to having a lot of information thrown at them,” Landoll says. “It’s really teaching them the skills of a quality source. Everything’s at their fingertips, but not everything is good.”

And while the world is changing quickly, education is just now catching up.

“It’s just really our world that has made the push in education,” Landoll says. “We’re finally responding to that, to what they’re seeing in their lives.”