The First Time I Met An Astronaut

I was born in 1959, just as the space race was beginning. 

President Kennedy was elected in November 1960, in part, because of a perceived "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. Kennedy keyed part of his presidential campaign on the belief that the United States was losing the space race.

By the time Kennedy took the oath of office, the first seven astronauts had been selected and were training for the upcoming manned space flights of the Mercury program. For me, their names resonate with history:

Alan Shepard; Gus Grissom; John Glenn; Deke Slayton; Scott Carpenter; Gordon Cooper; and Wally Schirra.

They were all military test pilots. They flew the newest, fastest, most dangerous jets before anyone else. Volunteers. Each braver and more dashing than the others. They were the embodiment  of the "Right Stuff" before the term was coined. Life magazine and the TV networks lionized these men. And so did I.

In 1961, NASA successfully launched Shepard and Grissom into space. A few months later, Glenn orbited the Earth.

Later, they were joined by the second seven and more after that. Men like Ed White, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, Roger Chaffee, Gene Cernan, John Young and Buzz Aldrin. 

After the Mercury Program came Gemini and Apollo. 

In those days space flight wasn't routine. A space mission was a national event. The television networks covered it live and for hours on end. I enthusiastically watched every moment of mission coverage. I read everything I could get my young hands on. I became the space expert in my school and among my friends. 

These men were my heroes. Larger than life. Braver then brave. They felt the hottest jets higher and faster than anyone else during the day, and the hottest sports cars during the night. Testosterone dripped off these men like sweat on a hot August day.  

I was captivated. Hero worship doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I was nine years old when the astronauts of Apollo Eight read from Genesis as their spacecraft orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve, 1968. I remember it for the awe-inspiring event it was. 

Seven months later, I was watching Neil Armstrong ease himself down the lunar lander's ladder onto the dusty surface of our nearest neighbor. 

Mission accomplished. And with that, the public turned its collective attention to other matters. Apollo continued but some missions were cancelled. The follow-on was the uninspiring Skylab program, then a long gap while the shuttles were built. 

The media and the public may have turned away from the space program but I never did. 

When I saw that an astronaut would be speaking at the Hanscom Air Show in 1991 or 1992, I made sure I was there. I brought my oldest boy but traffic was a mess and we had to park a mile away. 

By the time we found the right tent it was almost over. We walked into the back of the tent while the closing remarks were wafting over the crowd. 

We'd missed it. 

I was crushed. 

It must have shown on my face. We made eye contact. A single finger held aloft told me to wait as the crowd began to stand and disperse. 

And in a moment I was shaking hands with an honest-to-God, flight-tested, space-faring, red-blooded American astronaut. For all the Corvette driving, jet fighter flying, testosterone pumping images, the astronaut standing in front of me was a woman. 

And she was as nice as she was smart and brave. She'd seen me rush in just in time to catch the final words of her talk. She made sure to catch my eye and asked me to stay. I introduced her to my son and we made small talk for a minute before she had to go. 

I don't know her name. I've hunted around the internet, but I can't find any mention of who she was. But it doesn't matter. I had finally met a real, flown-in-space astronaut and she was great. 

Why I say What I Say...

 “Number Nine, Number Nine.”

I say this in a very specific way sometimes. I used to say it a lot more when I was a math teacher, but even teaching science, opportunities arise for me to repeat this from time to time. 

Why? 

It comes from a Beatles song written by John Lennon. 

The funny thing is, I absolutely hate this song. It’s rubbish. I think I’ve listened to all 8 minutes of it twice. It’s awful. But the Number Nine thing stuck with me.

“Sit Ubu, sit.”

I say this sometimes when I want a student to sit down. Sometimes I add "good, dog." It comes from the end of several TV sitcoms from the 1980’s, like Family Ties. It was the sign-off at the end of the shows done by a particular production company. There was a photograph of a dog - Ubu taken at the Louvre in Paris. You could probably google what and why, but like Number Nine, it has stuck in my brain. 

Do you have things like that stuck in your head? 

Tell me about them!

The Stack of Work on the Dining Room Table

Unless we are having guests, there is pretty much always a stack of student work on my dining room table. 

This is not my wife’s favorite thing. She likes the house to look nice whether people are coming over or not, and she does not consider a stack of papers a great look.

If I don’t do grading for a while, the pile grows day by day until it gets to a point where I HAVE to start grading it. Trust me, if I don’t get around to it, my wife will ask me “What’s up with all those papers on the table?”

This is something to be avoided.

I think teachers tend to make new school year resolutions in September in addition to the regular New Year’s resolutions. Mine is almost always “get the grading done quickly.” I think I’m doing better than I have in the past, but sometimes its a struggle.

So, when I say “There is a big pile of student work on my dining room table,” I’m not kidding.

Gravity Always Wins

If you lean back in your chair, at some point friction will fail, your chair will slip and gravity will pull you down to the floor. It will pull you down and pull you down fast!

If you lean over too far in your chair, gravity will drag you right off the seat and you will end up in a heap on the floor wondering what happened. 

If you only put part of your chair upside down on the table at the end of the day, it will slip and accelerate until it meets the floor. <Crash!>

Chromebooks, notebooks and textbooks do not levitate - if not placed securely on a table or desk, gravity will do its thing.

Of course, we all know this, yet somehow, someone or something crashes to the floor in the science lab each and every day. Water spills, pencils end up under tables, Do Nows litter the floor, and glue sticks regularly roll across the lab benches and land the floor.

I have read that when astronauts return to Earth from long stays on the International Space Station, they expect they can "float" things next to them as they did in space. But, that doesn't work so well on Earth. 

Gravity always wins.

End of the First Quarter

We have reached the end of the first quarter. We’re 25% done with the 2022-23 school year. From my perspective it went by fast!

The second quarter is a little different - It’s more cut-up. We have two-and-a-half days off for Thanksgiving, a week off after Christmas and grades will close by the middle of January. I think this quarter will seem to go past even faster.

In my science class, during the first quarter, I did not penalize students who missed assignments. I essentially rewarded you for engaging in the work without punishing you for missing things. Engaging in the work is a pretty basic expectation and I think the 7th and 8th grades have done a good job with that. 

Now, the expectation is that you will engage in the work, and do a good job. I will be doing more grading on the quality of the work, not just did you try or not. So, if you miss a day of school or do not finish something in class, you will need to catch up. Take it home to finish or do it after school in the homework club. 

Zeros will kill your grade so you must do everything in your power to avoid them. 

Buckle up, the second quarter has started. It’s gonna go fast and you need to do your best on each assignment. 

Song of the Day

If you’re not in my homeroom, you may have wondered about the list of songs and artists written on the whiteboard behind Teddy Bonesevelt. We do this thing called “Song of the Day.” I select five songs that have something in common - a theme. I play one song per day and the kids in my homeroom guess what the theme is - what the songs or artists all have in common.

Some recent themes were: 

• Songs by artists known primarily by one name - Cher, Adele, Rhianna & Elvis,
• Songs by artists from Massachusetts - Aerosmith, James Taylor, etc.

I have a good time coming up with the themes and songs and, yes, they kinda reflect my taste in music. If you were to stick your head in Ms. Macinnis’ room, you would notice she plays music

during homeroom. It’s nice, soft, jazzy music. I assume that’s what she likes. In my room you are going to hear a hard driving beat and screaming guitars. I just love me some screaming guitars!

I am open to suggestions for a theme and only have few guidelines. 

• There must be five songs,
• It has to be school appropriate,
• There must be a theme - something that links all five of the songs together,
• It can’t be obvious - You have to keep people wondering until day four or five.

If you have a suggestion for a theme, even if you need help coming up with the actual songs, let me know. Let’s all have fun with the music!

The Teachers Who Helped Me...

I can think of three teachers who were most influential in my education. People say we are the sum of our experiences and I believe that to be true. These teachers added experiences in different ways that influenced the person I have become. 

Mrs. Haller

My third grade teacher. We called her Ol’ Snappy Fingers. She could snap her fingers like thunder. It was incredibly loud to my young ears and she could do both hands at the same time or in rhythm. Snapping her fingers was an attention signal that we all learned meant, “Give be your attention RIGHT NOW!”

It was in the third grade that I fell in love with science. I can clearly recall two experiments we did in her class - we floated a pin on water and we made floating pepper scoot to the outside of a bowl by touching the water with soap. Pretty simple science but, if I can remember it after 55 years, it must have made a pretty big impression on me. (I’d be happy to help any of you do these experiments if you would like.)

Mr Hone

My sixth grade teacher. There are several things about Mr Hone that helped me grow and develop. First, he spoke to the class and to us individually as people. I mean he did not talk to us like we were kids. He didn’t talk down to us. He treated us as human beings with equal value. Even in the sixth grade, I noticed and appreciated this. 

Second, he recognized my innate curiosity and supported it. He would let me read or visit the library when my work was done. He encouraged me to spend time with our set of encyclopedias (They were our equivalent of the internet, but all printed out and in book form. All 27 volumes were stored on a rolling cart in our room).

Third, he let me do extra projects even if I wasn’t in a group that was doing projects. One project was to build a model house using small lengths of wood and glue. I was not in that group, I was doing extra grammar work in Mrs. Clark’s room - ugh. But, he recognized how interested I was and showed me how to build the frame of a building and gave me the supplies I needed. I built a model garage about 12 inches square, just for fun. I was very proud of my work, even if I didn’t get a grade out of it. 

By the way, I previously blogged about the last time I ever saw Mr. Hone.

Ms. Archambault

When I first met her, she was the advisor to the Astronomy Club in my high school. When I was a senior, she was my chemistry teacher. At the time, I knew she did not want to teach chemistry. She was an earth science teacher but the administration forced her to teach a section of chemistry. She didn’t go a great job. It was NOT my favorite class; in fact, I hated it.  

But, here’s what she did do well. She supported me in the Astronomy Club. She encouraged me and my friends to follow our passions and to push the envelope. We took very public risks and even when they didn’t turn out great, we learned so much about life from just trying. She supported my love of science when it was the most fragile. I recently found her on Facebook and thanked her for that. 

You might not be able to see who is helping you grow in different ways right now, but as you mature and gain perspective, you will look back and there will be certain people who stand out. Remember them, and pay it forward by helping someone else, even if it just means doing your job.