"IS THIS REAL...OR IS IT ONLY A GAME?"

Mr. D'Ambrosio,

I realize you probably have a hundred e-mails to read (half of them from ****), but I wanted to take a moment and thank you.  I can't even begin to tell you how much **** has learned about history, geography, navigating and searching the internet, e-mail and even decoding messages in the search for the hexagon.  My husband and I are just amazed at how excited he is about all of this.  We are also just astonished at how elaborate this is.  I think by breakfast **** will probably try to convince us to buy him a plane ticket to Mexico as his Christmas gift.  I only hope he doesn't remember that several of our friends are FBI agents.  I would much rather see him this excited though, than have to force him to do his homework.

We of course, do not allow him to search the internet unsupervised so we have actually learned a lot also.  This is partly the reason why I am e-mailing you at 1 a.m.  **** wouldn't let me near my e-mail all night - just in case you or Dr. Hawass needed to get in touch with him.

Again, thank you.  I hope that the school district realizes what a great teacher they have.  If there is ever anything I can do for you please do not hesitate to ask.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday!

Mother of Student

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The Hexagon Challenge was designed by Jay D'Ambrosio, M.A., history teacher at Hampton Middle School in Allison Park, Pennsylvania.  In 2010, Jay was named one of the "50 most innovative educators in the nation" by PBS.  Two of his educational Web sites have been named Best Bets in Education by USA Today:

     Adventures in World History

     Ancient Adventures

Jay is the author of the following books and articles:

Ordered Disorder: Finding Divine Patterns in the Midst of Life's Chaos (Amazon Shorts, 2008)

The Mythic Teacher (Mythic Passages: The Magazine of Imagination, Educating the Imagination, September 2007)

The Initiation of Perseus (Mythic Passages: The Magazine of Imagination, Rites of Passage, May 2007)

Rethinking Adolescence: Using Story to Navigate Life's Uncharted Years (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006)

Egyptian Influence Upon Early Israelite Literature (Aeon: A Journal of Myth, Science, and Ancient History, October 2005)

Integrating Web Portfolios into the Learning Process (Library Media Connection, March 2004)

E-Teaching: Creating Web Sites and Student Web Portfolios Using Microsoft PowerPoint (Linworth Publishing, Inc., 2003)
 

copyright © 2006 Jay D'Ambrosio