“I touch the future, I teach” – Christa McAuliffe
Sharon Christa McAuliffe was born on September 2, 1948, in Boston, Mass. After earning a B. A. degree in 1970, she married her high school sweetheart and moved to Washington D.C. where she would eventually earn her master’s degree in school administration. The couple moved to New Hampshire in 1978, and a few years later McAuliffe accepted a social studies teaching position at Concord High School. In this role, she sought to educate her students using real-world stories and experiences, exposing them to historical facts about the history of the American Woman and using field trips to bring classroom lessons to life. In 1984, when then-President Ronald Reagan announced the first civilian in space would be a teacher, McAuliffe made a last-minute decision to submit her application. In July 1985 she was selected as one of the 114 (out of 11,000) semifinalist to go to D.C. for an interview. After a battery of rigorous physical and psychological tests, McAuliffe was chosen to be the first teacher in space. Six months later, on January 28, 1986, she was one of the seven crew members on the Challenger Space Shuttle. Tragically, 73 seconds after lift-off, a leak in one of the rocket boosters caused an explosion and McAuliffe, and the six other crew members perished in the crash. Her legacy lives on in the strides she made as an educator and her aspirations to teach the world. In her own words:
You have to dream. We all have to dream. Dreaming is okay. Imagine me teaching from space, all over the world, touching so many people’s lives. That’s a teacher’s dream! I have a vision of the world as a global village, a world without boundaries. Imagine a history teacher making history!
To learn more about Christa McAuliffe visit:
http://christa.org/christa-corrigan-mcauliffe/
https://www.thoughtco.com/christa-mcauliffe-3071146
http://www.seasky.org/space-exploration/challenger-christa-mcauliffe.html
https://www.losal.org/domain/521