Bill Gates loves to read.
And, as followers know from his blog posts and other outreach programs as co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has demonstrated he is passionate about education and how technology is taught. This was most recently showcased in his latest post about a visit with the Washington State’s Teacher of the Year, Camille Jones.
Related: Bill Gates’ List of Must-Read Books
Jones teaches in at the Pioneer Elementary school in Quincy, a small town in Central Washington. Her subjects: Science, technology, engineering arts, and math. Suffice to say, that curriculum covers a wide swath of human endeavor.
As Gates—also the co-founder of Microsoft (MSFT)—points out, it’s interesting that Jones includes “arts” among what is typically known as STEM curriculum. But she says focusing on the creativity of the arts helps in the other fields, including engineering.
Check out the full video below:
This holistic approach applied to young children is apparently controversial in some quarters. Jones says she gets some pushback that elementary school students are too young for such lessons.
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She disagrees: “By the time students get to fifth grade, a lot of time they have their ideas about what they’re good at and what they like to do. I say, bring STEAM in from kindergarten. Let’s show them all the opportunities in the world today.”
