Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World - Hardcover

by Stephanie Malia Krauss (Author)

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.

Front Jacket

A practical guide to how today's kids and the world are changing, and what you can do to help young people navigate and prepare for adulthood.

Economic crises. Centuries-old racism. Deepening disparities. A global pandemic and other novel challenges. Today's world feels increasingly volatile and unpredictable. Major disruptions and innovations are forcing us to live, learn, and work in new ways. And for today's kids, these changes will shape and shift their childhoods and futures. By the time they reach adulthood, everything could look pretty different.

In Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World, Stephanie Malia Krauss--an expert on education, economic well-being, and youth development--goes beyond the question of what young people need to succeed in school, to ask what they need to be ready for life. You'll join Stephanie as she considers the latest research, reflects on her parenting and professional life, and talks to educators, doctors, employers, and young people, always asking the same question: what do today's young people really need to make it in life?

Throughout the book, you will learn how today's kids are being wired and rewired by their environments and experiences, how the world and workforce are changing, and what all of this means for what young people need to navigate now and make it in the future.

Making It challenges long held notions of the education and preparation young people need to be ready for their adult and working lives. This book offers a refreshing and modern view--four currencies that can be learned and earned at school, at home, at work, and in the community: competencies, connections, credentials, and cash. Making It also provides practical strategies and a plan for how you can be a currency-builder in young people's lives.

Personal and deeply-researched, Making It is essential reading for anyone who wants to ensure that young people are prepared for adulthood and able to thrive in changing and challenging times.

Back Jacket

PRAISE FOR MAKING IT

"Krauss offers the roadmap we need to get kids ready for a rapidly changing and challenging world. Her call for every adult and educator to become a currency-builder is one we should take seriously. This is a must read."

--ARNE DUNCAN, Managing Partner of Emerson Collective and former U.S. Secretary of Education

"Smart and insightful! Stephanie Malia Krauss makes a compelling case for the new currencies kids need to thrive in our rapidly-changing world."

--CAL NEWPORT, New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work

"Krauss is an educator who knows that learning is not to be confused with schooling. She demonstrates brilliantly that complex ideas can be communicated clearly, and with some wit. Krauss wants making it to be a right, rather than a privilege. The hope animating this book is that we can find 'beauty in the brokenness' of our current moment. Timely, wise, and inspiring."

--RICHARD V. REEVES, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution and author of Dream Hoarders

"With her trademark blend of liveliness and concrete, realistic advice, Stephanie Malia Krauss writes about what the future holds for today's kids--and what youth workers, families and allies can do to help prepare them. Easy to read, and with ideas you will return to."

--LESLIE LAPIDES, Senior Editor of Youth Today

"Making It is essential reading for anyone who is parenting and supporting young people."

--RHONDA BROUSSARD, CEO of Beloved Community

Author Biography

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.