Learning About the Space Shuttle Program

My son has a stuffed animal that I gave him that belonged to me as a child.  It is a grey pound puppy named Brandon.  I named him after the famous golden retriever from Punky Brewster.  I am sure some of us grew up during the time of the adventurous Punky Brewster.  Punky had spunk.  She was  a character who I looked up to, even though she was  a girl.   In the 80s boys were meant to be boys who looked up to characters like He-Man, and Voltron.  Yeah, all of these shows were make believe but they played to something that public education has deadened, our creativity and imagination with Science and Math.

Today marked the day of the last NASA space shuttle launch.  It was amazing to see how far we have come in technology to see every moment of the flight set up.  It might be the wannabe nerd in me talking, but it was so fascinating.  I woke up at 7 a.m. put Benjamin back to sleep with his pound puppy Brandon and turned on my phone, laptop, and the television to see the launch.  I remember learning about the NASA from that famous show Punky Brewster.   I still remember the Career day scene where Punky walked in wearing the coolest astronaut costume.  Her explanation of an explorer made everyone in her T.V. classroom want to be an astronaut including the little boy watching it on a 10 inch television from his mothers bed.

When I went to school I always wanted to spend time in Science and Math, and I was terrible at them both.  I still remember having to spend my tutorial class,  homeroom, and my off period studying for my Science classes in high school.  I do not recall ever making above  a B in any of my Science classes.  When it came to projects I did well, I was a bit of a procrastinator so my grades could have been better on the projects, but my creativity always gave me a fair grade.

Having things like the NASA program shown creatively on television made me want to learn more.  It made me realize other than Buzz Lightyear what creative alleys will my son go down to learn about space and science.  How do we teach my kids about the space shuttle program when now it will be privatized.  Soon, we will have to watch the shuttle launch on Pay Per View.

So here is what I have learned from Punky Brewster and the NASA shuttle launches:

1. Be observant:  Science can be eye opening even for those who don't like it.  Hey, I thought punky's friend who wanted to grow up to be Rambo was  a great idea.
2. Create a constant learning environment:  Learning can be created with any medium: TV, Videos, walks in the park, trips to the museums, sports, and yes even water balloons.  I could go on with tons of ways to apply science and math.
3. Be a creativity advocate:  My wife comes up with the most creative ways to celebrate holidays and birthdays.  She is a poet and a problem solver.  Her creativity and gusto helped organize and create a lot of fun for our church week long day camp.  Yet, she believes that she is not creative.  This coming from the women who wanted to be a pro-wrestler and Isaiah Thomas when she grew up.  She even told me school killed the creativity in her.  It was about making good grades.  I try my best to encourage the process and her ways of thinking.  The same will go for my students and children.
4. Be a Learning Engineer:  Learning is one of the only things you continue to do as you grow in life.  
1. An learning engineer is a professional concerned with applying high yield instructional strategies of scientific knowledge, mathematics, humanities and ingenuity to the educational environment.  A Learning Engineer creates materials, structures, machines and systems that encourages and utilizes whole brain learning.

So the question is who is going to teach my son about the space program.  I am!  Make good choices do great things