Making It What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World

Discover how to help young people "make it" in a rapidly changing world

Author Stephanie Malia Krauss gets it. Every day she works with leaders across the country as they upgrade learning experiences to better equip young people for a changing world. A mother, former teacher and school leader, Stephanie knows firsthand how hard it is to balance school and program requirements with young people's needs. In Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World, she lays out what adults can do to get young people ready for the future. What you learn may surprise you.

With so much changing so fast—accelerated by the impacts of COVID-19—the most in-demand jobs and skills of today may be obsolete by the time our youngest become adults. For kids to be ready for this new reality, they must acquire four critical "currencies" that will serve them well, whatever their future holds: credentials, competencies, connections, and cash. This book focuses on how to prioritize these four key outcomes whenever and wherever learning happens. The author shares research and experience to help you understand and apply a human-centered and future-focused lens directly to your classroom, school, program, or at home.

• Learn about how the world and workforce is changing, and what that means for the education and preparation young people need
• Understand how these changes are impacting young people, reshaping their childhoods and transitions into adulthood
• Glean practical information and ideas you can use to help young people—at every age and stage—to gain readiness "currencies" in the form of credentials, competencies, connections, and cash
• Challenge your beliefs about what knowledge, experiences and resources are most important for kids to have, and what a college- and career-ready education really requires
• Discover community-wide strategies that prioritize equity, learning and readiness for the future

This book will benefit teachers, counselors, youth workers, parents, school board members, and state education leaders alike. Whether you work in K-12, youth development, or you just want to know how to best support the kids in your life, you will find a timely and useful resource putting young people first and modernizing their learning experiences for the better.

STEPHANIE MALIA KRAUSS is an educator, social worker, researcher, and writer. Her work focuses on what young people need in the first quarter of life, in order to thrive and be ready for adulthood. Stephanie is a senior advisor to JFF and a staff consultant for the Youth Transition Funders Group. She started her career as a fifth grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. A proud New Jersey native, Stephanie lives in the St. Louis area with her family.

About the Author ix

Preface xi

Foreword by Karen Pittman xv

Foreword by Maria Flynn xix

Introduction xxiii

I A Changing World 1

1 Today’s Kids 3

2 Tomorrow’s World 21

II Life Currencies 51

3 Competencies 53

4 Connections 73

5 Credentials 91

6 Cash 109

III Currency-Building 129

7 Becoming a Currency-Builder 131

Acknowledgments 147

Index 151

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