What exactly constitutes "preparation for the 21st century?"

I came upon this site last night and have been thinking about it ever since. Here's a video done by Bill Farren that I would like to show to audiences who've already seen and exclaimed over (or been depressed by) Did You Know or Shift Happens.

I started thinking about how we often hear the words: "preparing students for the 21st century." I'm starting to wonder exactly what that means. There are some fantastic teachers who haven't shown much interest in being wowed by the usual videos, but I think Farren's work will touch them in ways that Shift hasn't. The recent food crises in Haiti and elsewhere emphasize how fragile something as basic as sustenance is in far too many parts of the world. Businesses shift from country looking for cheap (exploitable?) labor sources; I'm certain we don't want to "prepare" anyone's child to be that cheap labor. I thought about the sinking ship that is our economic dependency on fossil-fuels. Are we who work in modern education just preparing a fortunate few to muscle their way to one of the lifeboats with our current educational goals? Or are we preparing them to figure out how to notice and maneuver around the icebergs that seem so unavoidable right now? Perhaps if we focus our education on their well-being, we will free them to think and imagine in ways we cannot.

Heavy stuff for Sunday morning (well, not morning anymore, but started in the am!) Cross posted on ISENET because I don't see a lot of crossover there. Hope that isn't a faux pas.
http://littechlearning.blogspot.com/
Sarah