Reflections as an Educator
“A mother can’t be an astronaut.”
The ten year old stared at me having made this declaration.
We had just had a presentation on female astronauts. (One that included a female astronaut who was a mother.)
Why?
Because the week ago we had talked about space. I had used the materials the school had provided. The textbook talked about Armstrong and Aldrin. We talked about the moon landing and how mankind surpassed all barriers to explore new frontiers.
A lesson that the kids enjoyed.
As they filed out of class that day one girl came up to me and asked so there were no female astronauts? She looked a little worried but also quite ready to accept that as a reality.
The shock and then the realisation hit me of what I had done. In the year 2024 I had managed to teach a lesson that was patriarchal, refused to acknowledge the contribution of women and had handed this worldview to a new generation.
So I took it upon myself to dedicate the next class to the contribution of women to the space mission.
It was in this lesson that this young boy made this declaration.
Other students began to join the debate, with another young boy asking would you say this to a father?
The boy returns, she could have done something else, receptionist or work the till at a store, why astronaut?
It was a class where I felt for the first time real learning took place. I have discovered that for a real education discourse and open free discourse at that, is an essential. Also as an educator we have to re-examine everything we teach to see if it holds up with the times. A new book was recently suggested to us as it promotes “Global Citizenship” however the first thing I noticed was its portrayal of the nuclear family with the domestic labour attributed to women while the “dad” sat playing a game on his phone in the illustrations.
The truth is that we need to care more about curriculum. We need to critically examine the question : when exactly do we teach our children that women’s lives are worth less?
