Touch The Future

In the book “I Touch the Future…” by Robert T. Hohler, Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher, faced an internal challenge in which she had to choose between family and a once in a lifetime experience. Christa’s passion for exploring and teaching had made space travel her destiny and on the day that NASA announced the start of the Teacher in Space program, she knew that she had a chance to live her dream. There was certainly no doubt that Christa had fulfilled all the contest requirements, such as having to be a teacher for more than seven years and a permanent U.S. citizen. However, she hesitated to complete the application after considering how her family would live without her. Having a husband who works full-time and two young children, one in third grade and one in kindergarten, Christa was the crucial member of her family that kept everything organized.

Being the loving person she was towards her family and students, Christa put family and teaching both at top priority. “Christa loved her husband and family too much to dash away for a year of high-tech fantasies. She went to Washington because she wanted to teach about a new frontier, about personal challenge and about the power of her much- maligned profession” (12). This quote explains why Christa had to choose between her family and space, which was the desire to gain new experience so that she can teach her students from a different perspective. Unfortunately, neither of her two beloved young children understood her challenge. “She knew Caroline was too young to understand why her mother has to fly to New York, never mind someplace in space. She knew she would be gone when Caroline read her first sentence, when she lost her teeth, when she woke up crying at night. Nothing about the space sabbatical bothered her