We received a beautiful letter of affirmation from one of our guests who worked with our students during the SAS Hour of Code event on Monday, December 5. Please read and enjoy. Thank you again for all the ways you support our work – Everything. Every Student. Every Day!
“Thank you. I enjoyed sharing with all of you.
You have a wonderful and a progressive program going at St. Ambrose. It is the kind of forward-looking thinking that you are doing that will bring about important new thrusts in education. The old school of rote memorization no longer works because knowledge has increased exponentially in the past century.
There is so much more to assimilate today that young people are often better off simply knowing where and how to find the kinds of information formerly committed to memory (and, subsequently, often forgotten), and how to put it to immediate use. The three R’s are still important of course, but, in other areas of learning, it is perhaps better to give them a wide, general view of what is available/possible, and to show them how to focus down on specifics when needed.
It is also good to show them how to work in teams wherein each individual has his/her focus and understands how that focus fits into a larger picture. Interestingly, all of this is the idea behind the Star Trek universe where people and machines live in a complete symbiosis. Roddenbury was also a forward-looking individual, and good fiction, such as his, often forecasts facts.
I look forward to other opportunities to work with you.” NASA Retired Physicist and Electrical Engineer
