Apollo 11 Anniversary

To folks of a certain generation, today, July 20, is something of an anniversary. Forty years ago today, humans landed on the moon, and the world watched on black-and-white television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of their lunar landing craft onto the rocky surface of our nearest planetary neighbor. It wasn’t green cheese after all, nor was there a Man in the Moon to be found.

It was a heady sight, a major achievement, a goal reached after President Kennedy a few years earlier at his Inauguration dared us to reach for it. That we landed at the moon’s Sea of Tranquility was a meaningful symbol during the difficult years of the Cold War.

I was just beginning my teaching career, filled with the promise that only new beginnings can bring. My head full of ideas of what my new profession would bring, I tried to think of what role an English teacher, however motivated, could play in this new world I saw unfolding before my eyes. My math and science colleagues would get to have all the fun, I thought enviously.

Well, I quickly realized that even though mathematicians and scientists were, indeed, in the spotlight, we readers and writers certainly had a role to play. If you can’t explain your ideas or read others’, you’re at a definite disadvantage.

Math and science are more in demand than ever, expanded with technology and engineering to create a new interdisciplinary academic focus, STEM, or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. (For information, see www.stemcoalition.org or the website of the U.S. Department of Education, www.ed.gov.)

Has American education lost its way in math and science teaching? Have we fallen behind other countries in technology education? There’s much talk lately about the numbers of college and university students who must first complete remedial math courses before moving on to more demanding, college level courses. Some of these students have even graduated from high school with “honors” math credits.

As our country moves slowly, inexorably, toward national curriculum standards, the conversation about the teaching of math and science is bound to become vigorous and heated.

On this anniversary – with the world facing its 21st century challenges of sour economies and stubborn wars – it’s useful to consider that our national workforce and economy, our standing in the world, our security and defense, our health and well-being, and our children’s future are all affected by our competencies in these STEM areas.

We need a workforce well-educated in the sciences and math, with working knowledge of computers, limitless creativity and curiosity, team-spirited problem-solving skills, and (here’s where we English teachers come in) the ability to express ideas cogently.

A technologically proficient workforce and a scientifically literate populace will help us to recapture the spirit of boundless optimism that gripped us forty years ago on this date. We’re certainly ready for boundless optimism again.

For more thoughts about STEM and 21st century skills, see my blogs of 9 March 2009 and 13 March 2009.

Do you have memories of the Apollo 11 moon landing? Share them with your kids and grandkids, and, please, share them with us by clicking on Comment below.

Tags:

Opinion

Comments

7/30/2009 2:55:29 PM

Hi Dr. Rick,

As a person with a nearly life-long interest in science in general and astronomy in particular, I was extremely excited by the entire space program and especially by what is to this day its climax -- the epic flight of Apollo 11. I have a couple of very strong memories from that July week in 1969.

First, it occured during my summer vacation between high school and college. I was about to head to Penn State to set sail on a degree in astronomy, and it seemed extremely fitting that we should reach the moon just as I reached the first steps of my dream. Unlike so many of my students today, I didn't sleep away my summer vacations -- while I loved school, I tried to make my vacations last as long as possible by staying awake as late as I could (till TV "went off" as it did then), and arising as soon as I heard my Mom head out the door. Thus, it was fairly easy for me to stay awake during a great deal of the Apollo 11 mission. I soaked it all in, audio-taping as much as possible from our old Magnavox (yes, black and white) TV. I had followed our space program from the very beginning, and was so happy when Eagle touched down, I jumped up and down and danced around our living room (fortunately, I was alone at the time).

But another memory is not quite as sweet. That was the cover story on the Sunday magazine supplement of the Pitsburgh Press either the Sunday of the landing or the week before, a story who's headline was "Of what earhly use the moon?" With one of humankind's greatest achievements at our hands, we were already being told that the program cost too much and that we have problems right here on earth to solve. My response is simply to ask, through 40 years of slashed NASA budgets and money no longer going to the space program, which problems have been solved? We still have wars (we were involved in one in 1969; we're involved in 2 now), we still have starvation, we still have diseases (including a new, incurable one), we still have unemployment, etc. Severely curtailing the space program failed to solve a single problem. On the other hand, as an exercise, use the Internet or an almanac, and check the number of hurricane deaths before the launch of our first weather satellites in the early 60s, and after. The computers, the Internet that have become so important in our lives almost certainly wouldn't be a reality yet if not for the miniturization necessitated by our lunar missions. How many lives have been saved by medical procedures that are now possible that almost certainly wouldn't be if not for that same minturization? So often, people look only at costs, and ignore what the costs have provided.

Anyway, those are two of my memories from that incredible week in 1969.

Best Wishes,

Bill
Sylvan 1718
Harrisburg

Bill Moser

8/9/2009 9:45:53 PM

Funny, I actually had this on my mind a few days ago and now I come across your blog...

Learn Master Guitar

8/9/2009 9:45:56 PM

Can�t believe that I�m the first one to digg this? Anyway, I did. Thanks for this awesome information.

Extended Stay San Diego

8/15/2009 9:11:13 PM

Makes a lot of sense and thanks for explaining that! I finally get it :o)

Learn German

8/23/2009 2:23:38 PM

We�re reading, keep writing! Thanks for explaining!