Are YOU an
astronaut teacher?
How many people pictured here are astronaut teachers?
(Short answer: All of them.)
(And, good news, if you work with young students today, then YOU are an astronaut teacher too.)
For a number of years now, I have been professionally encouraging students to pursue careers in space. What this means is that as a classroom’s Special Guest—an astronaut teacher—I visit schools and organizations around the US and abroad to promote the awareness among today’s young students that tomorrow’s jobs are in space.
And that’s all it takes to have the attention of every student in the room.
Note to astronaut teachers: Works for grown-ups, too!
It is pretty much the greatest job in the world. I travel, I meet and work with amazing people, and best of all I get to meet and work with young students who love everything about space. These students already know what they want to do when they grow up—go to space!—and have just been waiting for someone (me, you) to tell them that which they have been longing to hear.
Which is this: “If you are between the ages of 9-12 today, by the time you are out of college, around the year 2025, you will have the opportunity to be among the first human beings who live work and play in space.”
In other words, what I say is, yes, young student, you can go to space because future jobs are going to be essentially most every job on earth—except that job will be in space.
Another part of my job is I meet with groups of space professionals and space exploration advocates (authors, teachers, artists, politicians, etc) and explain how today’s kids are definitely going to be living working and playing in space.
To the adult space professionals and educators, what I explain is how they too are astronaut teachers, and I share with them what I call the Magic Words. The Magic Words are simply these two questions:
- “What are you going to be when you grow up?”
- “Have you ever thought about doing that in space?”
Astronaut is in fact a loaded word. Most of us have an idea of what this means, and what it entails. However, how students imagine astronauts must incorporate their own modern world views. For instance, most people do not know this but young students today are equally familiar with President Barack Obama as the are space jump record holder Felix Baumgartner. Equally.
President of USA
or Red Bull-sponsored daredevil?
Surprise: To a preteen,
they are equally famous.
Which is why my two questions are so dynamic and important. As mentoring adults, it is our job to encourage the next upcoming generation of students to lift their sights up to the skies and to imagine a space future with themselves in it! These two questions turn the key which opens the doorways of their vision and imagination. In order to inspire students about space and science we have to do it on their terms, not ours.
(Hint: google Kerbal)
Also, when I say “imagine a space future—with themselves in it,” I am referring to is both students and we their adult instructors-mentors-guardians. Since it is the responsible adults’ job to inspire young students, we have to believe in the future we are directing their attention to. Yet it is specifically here where I noticed a challenge. The challenge is us grown-ups!
While it is not widely-recognized, at the time in the 1960's whole swaths of the world’s adult population openly scoffed at the world’s space program, and the lunar program in particular.
(Ask someone today over age 60 what their grandparents, people who were alive before automobiles, thought about space travel and “going to the moon”).
True, adults today may be more open-minded in a number of ways, ways which enable ongoing transitioning of communication habits—such as regular mail to email, and phone calling giving way to SMS messaging. Yet when it comes to envisioning the future, today’s adults are subtly disinterested. Or skeptical. Or even worse–cynical.
There is a terrible reason as to why this is. Essentially, it is because present-day, mid-life adults were raised as children with the belief that they were going to be the first generation to live, work, and play in space. Who knows how many adults today, in positions of influence and authority, are quietly pissed that space-as-a-career got taken from them?
I’m 49 and I’m one of the kids of those grown-ups. And for my part, I can say with authority that my peers (ages 45–55) and I in fact grew up imagining ourselves as the generation who would be the Space Generation.
In other words, many of us who are parents today and who face “40 being the new 20” truisms are openly cavalier about a space future–because of the commonly shared feeling of being shortchanged. Meaning, like I said, my generation and even the generation before ours are actually somewhat PO’d and are collectively (consciously or unconsciously) stewing over this.
Now that most my age group now have families, mortgages, car payments, insurance payments, school payments, groceries, and family vacations (as well as aging parents) to manage, it looks like the only way we are going to possibly get to go to space is as retiree space tourists—and that’s if we are smart with our money and really, really lucky!
Young people today will definitely get to work in space while it is pretty clear my peers and I maybe, just maybe will get in on taking a short hop up to sub-orbit and back again. You can see how it sounds like a raw deal.
I call it the “hey-that-was-supposed-to-be-me” syndrome.
Now that we adults understand what in fact happened—politics killed space—watching space become reality for this next generation—our kids, the neighborhood kids, even our grandchildren—is a little bit like being that character from the Spielberg-directed portion of Twilight Zone the Movie with the one old guy who late in life refuses to play kick-the-can, and subsequently misses his chance for regained youth.
“There is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hewn though it may be.”
To carry the Twilight Zone movie analogy just a little further, however, all of this makes what I do liken-able to the same film’s Scatman Crothers’ character. Crothers’ character in that film not only goes around sharing the Good News—ie “Hey! You can go live work and play in space!”—to whoever will listen, but the character goes on to share it with his fellow adult peers as well because the Good News applies to them too!
Which is exactly what I do. As I some time ago realized, the very next best thing to being an astronaut is being an astronaut teacher.
And that’s why connecting with other space professionals about making space real for young students today is so important. We are all astronaut teachers. All it takes is recognizing it. In fact, when addressing other space professionals and scientists, researchers, artists, engineers, physicists, space advocates et al, it’s one of the first things I ask: “Are there any other astronaut teachers in the room?” The answer at first is a few raised hands but plenty of smiles.
The fact of the matter is this: We are all astronaut teachers. All it takes is love for space and adventure and a willingness to share the dream of space and adventure with budding young visionaries, visionaries who are open to a future good enough to picture themselves in it.
Just as we ourselves caught the fever for space and space exploration, it is most certainly our job to make sure it gets passed on to as many of the next generation as possible. Use the Magic Words every chance you get: “What are you going to be when you grow up? Have you thought about being an astronaut?”
Students today get as amazed and excited about space exploration and the space future as we did when it was us who were them. Today, our one time space dreams have become space reality. Matter-of-factly, we dreamed a future and it is here. That future we dreamed of and imagined for ourselves? It is the present and we are here.
Therefore, “our present” to give to today’s young students must be their own space future, which in turn will become “their present” to give to the next generation who will follow them way off in the distant (40 years! 100 years!) future. Our pointing the way to students to their space future in turn insures some future generation will one day give their successor’s the gift of their interstellar future.
Imagine that: An interstellar future. Because in time, following our example, their message will in-turn supersede our message. Just as we must say to this next generation, “You can be an astronaut,” they in turn will say to those that follow them: “You can build a starship!”
And amazingly, with the permission of all today’s many astronaut teachers, one day they will.
Mike Mongo is writer, space blogger, and STEM educator. He has worked as an astronaut teacher for the past eight years in public and private schools inside and outside the USA, and is chief brand & culture officer for Icarus Interstellar as well as strategic director of Starship Congress. He is author of The Astronaut Instruction Manual, published this October by inkshares.com. He lives with his wife in Key West, FL, where he writes, swims, and collects beaucoup airmiles.
