Scott Carpenter and the Future of Education

I had the amaz­ing oppor­tu­nity to hear Mer­cury Astro­naut Scott Car­pen­ter speak, albeit briefly, at my school on Sat­ur­day. He was attend­ing the 40^th Anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the Spe­cial Expe­ri­ence Room, a plan­e­tar­ium and mul­ti­me­dia space in the McDon­ald Ele­men­tary School in Warmin­ster, PA.

Fifty years ago this month, Car­pen­ter and six other men were selected to become the first Amer­i­cans in space as part of the Mer­cury pro­gram. Part of Carpenter’s mes­sage to the gath­ered group was to encour­age stu­dents to stay in school, and that through hard work and deter­mi­na­tion they could accom­plish great things. Some might con­sider the mes­sage to be cliche and no longer rel­e­vant to today’s world. But I think it’s impor­tant to remem­ber the value and neces­sity of dili­gence and effort.

Car­pen­ter com­mented about how we have accom­plished so much that was unimag­in­able fifty years ago, and he expressed hope for a bright future, con­fi­dent that we will be able to do things in 2059 that we can’t begin to con­ceive today.

The for­mer astro­naut, who insisted that he was today just “Scott” and that the title of Com­man­der Car­pen­ter had long since been left behind, pointed out that the eight-​​year-​​olds sit­ting in the audience—of which my youngest son was one—were exactly the right age to become the first per­son to stand on Mars.

Edu­ca­tors must more than occa­sion­ally remind them­selves that the stu­dents sit­ting in front of them today really are the lead­ers, inven­tors, cre­ators, explor­ers, design­ers, teach­ers, builders, and dis­cov­er­ers of a world that doesn’t even exist yet, except in the imag­i­na­tions of those same chil­dren. The only way those imag­in­ings can pos­si­bly become real­ity is if we nur­ture them. Edu­ca­tion isn’t about knowl­edge any more. In fact, it isn’t even about giv­ing stu­dents tools and the skills to use them, because we don’t have the tools they will need to cre­ate that future. We must teach them how to lead, invent, cre­ate, explore, design, teach, build, and dis­cover for themselves.

What an awe­some and ter­ri­fy­ing respon­si­bil­ity we’ve been given. Just as the Mer­cury astro­nauts launched Amer­ica and the world into space and opened new fron­tiers, new dis­cov­er­ies, and new ways of liv­ing, so we have the power to launch our chil­dren into their future. I pray we do so thoughtfully.