Letter from the
Superintendent
Dr. Gary Peiffer
“Greensburg Salem believes that we should
prepare students for their future, not our past.”
Dear Parents, Students, and Friends,
A
s it is the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, I
thought it would be appropriate to take a moment to
welcome the Class of 2032 and to save a space for them
at Offutt Field for their commencement. Having grown
up in the 1970’s, the year 2032 surpasses all of those futuristic
dates promoted in the science fiction novels and movies I
consumed as a boy- 1984, Space: 1999, 2001- A Space Odyssey,
2010- The Year We Make Contact, and so forth. Back then, I
thought for sure by 2032, man would have travelled to Mars, we
would have a colony on the Moon and would have come close
to making the warp drive a reality. Of course, back then as a boy,
I never imagined such technological innovations as Iphones,
crypto currency, or Fitbits and how those things impact daily
life. Looking ahead, it is difficult to know what technological
advances will impact future generations. Will driverless cars
become the norm? Will there be a cure for cancer? Will there be
a way to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere? What
engineering advances will be utilized to repair our roads, bridges,
and levees? By 2032, I will be 67, and one quarter of the 21st
Century will be over. For the Class of 2032, their paths in the world
will be just beginning. So, as superintendent, I have to constantly
evaluate the curriculum, assessments, and programs offered at
Greensburg Salem to weigh them against what the knowledge
base, skill sets, and competencies of the Class of 2032, (and every
class) will be needed for them to thrive when they approach mid-
century.
Greensburg Salem believes that we should prepare students
for their future, not our past. In other words, we need to progress
forward. If we are still approaching education the same way that
was done in the 20th Century, we are not serving our students
or our community. Often in those days, a student could get
good grades if he or she could replicate the information that the
teacher stressed in class and demonstrate that replication on
a test. This practice formed a pattern of waiting for the teacher
to tell the class what the correct information was, memorize
that information for the test, take the test, and forget about
it. If successful, the student would have jumped that hurdle
and began racing to the next one. Once so many hurdles were
successfully jumped in a single school year, the student was able
to move to the next track the following year to begin the race
again. That model served our country well for decades, when we
had a largely industrial economy and many students could get
a good paying job in a mill or trade with a high school diploma
only. In 2019- let alone 2032- that economy no longer exists. With
globalization, digitalization, high speed internet, and automation,
the world and the economy has evolved. To effectively prepare
students to thrive in those conditions, education has to evolve as
well, and this evolution has to be continuous.
Charles Darwin observed:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most
intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to
change”
Our challenge as educators, in my view, is to be able to produce
graduates that are the most adaptable to change. So what skill
sets will the Class of 2032 need to enable to them to adapt to the
changing conditions they will be facing? I think they need to have
a deep conceptual understanding of the information that they are
being taught, not a superficial and transitory grasp of what they
needed to know for a particular test. This deep understanding
will form the foundation upon which future skills will be built.
I think they need to be able to transfer that deep conceptual
knowledge to other tasks and situations. They need to be able
to see relationships between concepts, make connections,
and work to create new knowledge. They need to be able to
critically and objectively analyze information to determine its
authenticity and utility. They need to be able to justify a position
or proposition based on reasoning and logic. They need to be
able to communicate with others and to work collaboratively.
They need to know how to deal with dissent just as much as
they can work with confirmation. They will need to be able to
use technology to communicate, research, document, record,
and create. They will need to develop interpersonal skills so as to
be able to collaborate with others on projects. They will need to
be resilient and will need to persevere. And they will need to be
lifelong learners, recognizing that education does not end once
one is handed a diploma. The diploma doesn’t represent the end
of one’s education, but just the beginning. And if we can properly
impart to the Class of 2032 these skill sets, perhaps one of them
will be able to find a way to harness 1.21 gigawatts for the Flux
Capacitor to get our focus “Back to the Future.”
The Greensburg Salem School District pages are edited and compiled by the Community Relations Department. For more
information please contact Melissa O’Brien, at 724.832.2907 or [email protected].
24
GREENSBURG SALEM