How to make an astronaut laugh

Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield, gave a presentation to a meeting of the Canadian School Boards Association earlier this summer.  I had heard interviews with Commander Hadfield during his stay on the International Space Station and had come to think of Hadfield as a true believer – a bit of a cheerleader and a little over the top when it came to space travel.

Chris Hadfield belts out a song in space

But as it turned out, Chris Hadfield is a wonderful storyteller.  I listened and began to see the man behind the mission and the boy who dreamed of going into space.  Hadfield painted such a vivid picture of his experience.  I almost felt myself stuck to my chair by the immense force of lift off.  When Hadfield described his spacewalk, I floated through the blackness of space with the image of a moonless night down by the lake.  And with his description of re-entry, I imagined being in a car with bad shocks going down a dirt washboard road. 

Times ten – what we think is physical stress here on earth pales in comparison to the description of Hadfield’s journey.  From the tender age of nine, Chris Hadfield had yearned to go into space and he showed us a photo of himself aboard a spaceship fashioned from a Quaker Oats box.  Commander Hadfield spoke too about his years of training, in the air and below the sea, and how he spent ten years learning to speak Russian in preparation for his flight.

When asked about the highlights of his space travels, Chris Hadfield talks about various things but mostly about his opportunity to speak to thousands of school children.  Hadfield is an amazing science teacher to young and old alike!

Chris Hadfield’s accomplishments are possible when a child has the opportunity to follow his dreams.  Commander Hadfield reached the stars … or at least came a little closer than most of us.  For some reason, Hadfield’s passion wasn’t squashed in childhood. 

Sir Ken Robinson speaks about the importance of fostering creativity in school and caring educators talk at length about how this may be done.  Despite the talk, the standardization of pedagogy and curriculum seems to be increasing.  While there remains some creativity in teaching, there also seems to be a belief among some bureaucrats and senior politicians that the right method coupled with the right ingredients will magically improve learning in our schools.  While graduation rates are improving and there have been changes introduced that make a difference in better addressing children’s individual needs, many of the new programs haven’t delivered.  There are still far too many children falling through the cracks.

Chris Hadfield followed his dream from childhood.  Ironically in this time of abundant choices, most children and adults don’t have the opportunities or the inner knowledge to realize their ambitions.  Still we often just tell them throughout childhood, especially at convocations, to follow their dreams.

We live in a world of specialists.  Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talks about “The 10,000-Hour Rule.”  In other words, in this era of accumulated knowledge and specialization, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of work or practice to become expert in most endeavours or professions.  Whoa Nelly, that’s a lot of hours!  No wonder kids need a dream and a great deal of passion to succeed.

What of the many without this burning ambition?  What about the kids in our specialized age who are generalists by temperament?  They’re not about to expend 10,000 hours to master a craft that doesn’t set them on fire.  What I would say then is to care about the person standing before you and bring integrity to your work.  These will help you find meaning in life.

As a generalist, I have had wonderful opportunities to work in various jobs over a lifetime.  As a school trustee, I have been able to bring this varied experience and knowledge to help influence schools and children’s lives.  While I want to encourage others to run for trustee, I won’t sugarcoat it.  Since the loss to direct local school taxation, there’s little formal power or remuneration attached to the position.  Most trustees are conscientious and it can be a lot of work.  It can also be frustrating, sometimes very frustrating, but there’s influence connected to the job that’s hard to beat. 

In an earlier post, I outlined the importance of assisting individual families and children by giving a little advice or making a phone call.  On a slightly larger scale, I was able to make an arrangement to sharpen 600 pairs of skates that were donated to a needy school.  Advocacy at pivotal points, being in the right place at the right time, helped roll out of the Pathways to Education and Empower Reading programs within our school board.  These two programs continue to work wonders for hundreds of students who struggle in school.

With two of my colleagues, we rewrote the school board’s special education policy to make it more responsive to the needs of children.  A number of trustees also worked to oppose the proposed alternative programme closure and the closure of Rideau High School, which if it had gone ahead, would have been severe blow to a needy community.

We helped develop a culture of equity at the OCDSB.  Recently our school board was among the first to address and support the educational rights of First Nations, Inuit and Metis students.  This is important both nationally and locally as more aboriginal families settle in Ottawa.

I'm in British Columbia right now and I've been hearing about the teachers' strike here. There has been 13 years of teacher labour unrest in B.C.  Trustees I've spoken to put the blame on the provincial government for the deadlock.  During last year’s teachers' unrest in Ontario, many trustees played the role of honest broker to prevent a reoccurrence of the B.C. experience.  School trustees through their work with the Ontario Public School Boards Association have influence in the development of new initiatives, such as mental health programs in schools, and OPSBA has the ultimate responsibility in financial matters to act as the employer in teacher and school board staff negotiations.

As I was saying, you meet the most interesting people in this work.  After the presentation, Chris Hadfield offered to sign his book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life.  As an aside, ABC is developing a sit-com based on the book. The casting possibilities should be interesting. I can't imagine who will play Hadfield but perhaps we may see Bill Shatner in yet another role, this time as Hadfield's oddball uncle. 

I was in line for the book signing a really long time.  As I waited, I had an opportunity to listen to Chris Hadfield answer questions and I noticed that he put a lot of thought into it. When it was finally my turn, I said, “Commander Hadfield, these book signings must be nearly as gruelling as going into space.”

Chris Hadfield started to laugh, really laugh, but then he stopped abruptly, studied my face, and said, “Seriously?  No!”  As an astronaut and teacher, Hadfield didn’t want to appear to minimize the real difficulties inherent to space travel.  Then he saw the twinkle in my eye, realized I was pulling his leg, and we both started to laugh again.

Our approaches may be as different as distant galaxies but astronauts, school trustees, and many caring people find common ground in helping to educate children.   Look at the trustee candidates in your area and consider running for trustee yourself.  There's an online resource to help get you started, http://elections.ontarioschooltrustees.org/en/index.html.  The deadline for nominations is September 12.

Few jobs offer such a great opportunity to make a difference.  Over my eight years as a school trustee, I learned a good deal.  There were many occasions to meet and work with some very good and thoughtful people ... and a chance to laugh with a man who had travelled to the heavens.  Overall, the experience was out of this world!

The views expressed in this post are personal opinions only.