We must prepare children for careers of innovation
Math, science studies are essential to success
After nearly seven days aboard space shuttle Discovery, orbiting the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour and circling the globe every 90 minutes, I was eager to experience what few astronauts ever do: leaving the confines of the ship and floating among the stars. That was Feb. 9, 1995, when I first walked in space.
This week, as Discovery makes its final voyage, I wonder what will inspire the next generation of innovators and explorers. With professional athletes and actors often cited by children as role models, we must ask whether exposing young people to touchdowns and movie marquees will motivate them to stay in school, study math and science, and one day help solve some of the tough environmental, energy and health care challenges we now face.
I was 13 years old when I saw the first moonwalk, and for an African-American boy growing up on a Navajo reservation, it was a life-changing event. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proved that the universe was much bigger than the community in which I lived and the opportunities much greater than what I had imagined. In those televised moments, my boyhood dreams expanded and my life changed course. I studied harder, graduated high school and college, attended medical school, became a doctor, joined NASA and, in 1993, was launched in space for the first time.
Since its inception, that has been the power of the NASA program. It has inspired generations of young people, from all walks of life, to reach beyond their backyards and pursue careers that allow them to explore, discover and change the world. NASA has given us a steady stream of heroes — John Glenn, Sally Ride, Ron McNair and Christa McAuliffe – role models with courage, intelligence, education and a sense of adventure.
Across the country, citizens, leaders and educators are expressing their apprehension about the future of technological innovation and the state of math and science education. And they have reason to be concerned. In America, 1.2 million children fail to graduate from high school on time. A child drops out every 26 seconds, while countries like Denmark, Japan and Finland have graduation rates higher than 90 percent.
In China, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Russia, for example, eighth-graders are outperforming our students in math and science. For the first time in history, Americans 25 to 34 years old are less educated than their parents. Today, about one-third of science and engineering Ph.D.s in the United States are earned by foreign students. Needless to say, something must be done.
Whether or not a child plans to go into a math- or science-related field as a career, it is critical that he or she is prepared to succeed in a world of increasing technological complexity. Achievement in math and science is important for everyone. In order to keep our country on the front lines of innovation, we have to raise our expectation of students, improve their performance, and encourage them to pursue these subjects at higher levels throughout high school and college.
We have to celebrate people like Neil Armstrong, Jonas Salk or Bill Gates, who have made substantial contributions to our lives, our society and our future. Moreover, those of us who have chosen math and science as the path to a profession have a responsibility to reach out to children and get them excited about what we do.
With the support of corporate benefactors such as Exxon Mobil, The Harris Foundation sponsors summer science camps in 30 states, and we visit cities across the country encouraging and inspiring middle-school students to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.
I applaud President Obama’s new Change the Equation initiative that has our country’s most powerful business leaders joining hands to raise student interest and literacy in these important subjects.
A recent study asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up, and unsurprisingly, the top three answers were sports figure, pop star and actor. But coming in at a close fourth was astronaut. As tempting as fame and fortune can be, children will always be intrigued by the twinkling night sky and unanswered questions of what is out there. We just have to encourage them to keep reaching for the stars.
Harris, a former NASA astronaut and the first African-American to walk in space, is the author of “Dream Walker: A Journey of Achievement and Inspiration.”
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