World Space Week is here!
It’s Oct 4-10 every year. So, what are you doing to promote space exploration in your community?
The largest annual space event in the world is taking place again. This year’s theme is “Exploring Mars, Discovering Earth”. What makes this year’s World Space Week special is this year you can be the one who gets the kids on your block hooked on space.
As a space educator, to me nearly every kid I meet and work with is could very well be the next Neil Armstrong, Carl Sagan, or Jill Tarter. What our job is is to let them know that.
Here’s what you do. Ask any kid over the age of, say, 6, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s a magic question.
If you’re lucky, your young protege give the magic answer: “I dunno.”
“I dunno” is like the doorway to most student’s hearts and imaginations. Particularly if your charge is between the ages of 9-12. That’s the age when we begin to picture ourselves in life roles. Such as scientist. Or engineer. Or astronaut.
“I dunno” is as practically spot-on identical to “I dunno, why, do you have something in mind, Ms/Mr. Genuinely Interested Teacher-Person?”
(I think of all good adults as teacher-people. Being a teacher-person is really every person’s job after the age of say, 20. “Each one, teach one” to me means teach one, now teach another, now teach the next one. Remember, when we’re doing it right, we are learning at the same time we are teaching. That’s the immediate reward of teaching: learning.)
Whenever I hear, “I dunno,” I’m quick on the mark with my follow-up. Which of course is “so have you ever thought about working in space?”
Think how few adults say to kids, “Have you ever thought about working in space?” But try it!
“Have you ever thought about being an astronaut?
It’s a question that leads to discussing school, grades, likes, dislikes, books (!), videogames, internet, dreams, current events, the works.
Now the thing is about this conversation, this amazing wonderful conversation, is that it can last anywhere from 1-to-20-minutes. Or more. (I’m not here to bore kids and students, just to inspire them.)
Here is an important heads-up. As it turns out, the vast, vast majority of career choice for the thousands of kids I work with over a year fall into roughly three categories. They are:
- Rapper.
- Rockstar.
- Professional athlete.
Explaining to any child that the likelihood of becoming a rap or rockstar or pro athlete is not a job is not so easy. Explaining that most rap, rock, and sports stars got their start in college or their own businesses is simpler. So when faced with “star” of any kind, I simply, “Great, so most stars start in college or own their own business. Meaning, they have other skills. So what else do you want to be?”
That always does the trick. Never let ‘em off the hook.
And never letting ‘em off the hook can best be accomplished by suggesting to students that they all be reading.
Always. Reading is the great distinguisher. Whatever we read, we keep. It’s like treasure of the mind. No one can ever take away from us what treasure we uncover by reading. Even (especially?) comic books. Comic books got me absolutely hooked on reading.
Many kids today have no idea that reading can instantly transport them to another world.*
(Inspiring reading suggestions for middle school kids are Robert Heinlein “juvies”, his YA titles such as:
- Time for the Stars
- Red Planet
- Have Spacesuit — Will Travel,
…and of course…
- Citizen of the Galaxy
The key to inspiring kids and students about space is to make it fun.
For me, have designed videogames, traveled the word with a backpack, served in the Army, done professional x-sports, spent a decade in university, dropped out, dropped back in, read thousands and thousands of books and comic books, wrote books, made movies, toured with artists and rockstars—plus all kinds of really cool science stuff along the way!—inspiring kids and students to pursue their dreams and igniting their creative and intellectual passions is not work; it’s fun—it’s what I did myself!
And that’s the key to inspiring people who are kids. Set an example of how great it is to be an adult.
(And, if your own life is less than inspiring, explain how are you presently changing it. Because if you aren’t totally jazzed by your own life, you are changing it, right?)
Believe it or not, most of us are having pretty interesting lives at this point. A great many of us are doing exactly what we want to be doing—hey, I’m an astronaut teacher!—and that makes us all people who may know a thing or two about what we are talking about here.
When we want to inspire kids and students about space we need to be inspired ourselves. That’s the key to empowering and inspiring to any young student. And there are few better places to start than by helping the kids and students in your life celebrate World Space Week!
