The Tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger
When it happened, when I watched the live broadcast of the Challenger launch and then of its cataclysmic disaster, I reminded myself this never happened before, it wasn’t supposed to happen, especially not on this mission with its invaluable passenger on board, the schoolteacher, a woman who was the epitome of what the instructor, the scholar, the academician stood for, for the millions of young men and women who have always depended upon their immeasurable talents. No, this could not happen to her.
But for all of us, as a nation, who at one time sat before that teacher to be taught and nurtured, all of us felt that pang of shock and sorrow, not only for her, but also for the other six crew members, for it was all of them who stood for that what Christa McAuliffe stood for.
A college instructor of mine, Ricardo Diaz, who held a deep passion for his profession and who has since passed on, once put it very succinctly: “One of the big functions of a teacher is to inspire people, to lead people, to make people reach higher, further, faster than they ever thought they would.”
I believe Christa McAuliffe did just that.
ARTHUR BOOTH
Los Angeles
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