How to make an astronaut laugh

Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield, gave a presentation to a meeting of the Canadian School Boards Association earlier this summer.  I had heard interviews with Commander Hadfield during his stay on the International Space Station and had come to think of Hadfield as a true believer – a bit of a cheerleader and a little over the top when it came to space travel.

Chris Hadfield belts out a song in space

But as it turned out, Chris Hadfield is a wonderful storyteller.  I listened and began to see the man behind the mission and the boy who dreamed of going into space.  Hadfield painted such a vivid picture of his experience.  I almost felt myself stuck to my chair by the immense force of lift off.  When Hadfield described his spacewalk, I floated through the blackness of space with the image of a moonless night down by the lake.  And with his description of re-entry, I imagined being in a car with bad shocks going down a dirt washboard road. 

Times ten – what we think is physical stress here on earth pales in comparison to the description of Hadfield’s journey.  From the tender age of nine, Chris Hadfield had yearned to go into space and he showed us a photo of himself aboard a spaceship fashioned from a Quaker Oats box.  Commander Hadfield spoke too about his years of training, in the air and below the sea, and how he spent ten years learning to speak Russian in preparation for his flight.

When asked about the highlights of his space travels, Chris Hadfield talks about various things but mostly about his opportunity to speak to thousands of school children.  Hadfield is an amazing science teacher to young and old alike!

Chris Hadfield’s accomplishments are possible when a child has the opportunity to follow his dreams.  Commander Hadfield reached the stars … or at least came a little closer than most of us.  For some reason, Hadfield’s passion wasn’t squashed in childhood. 

Sir Ken Robinson speaks about the importance of fostering creativity in school and caring educators talk at length about how this may be done.  Despite the talk, the standardization of pedagogy and curriculum seems to be increasing.  While there remains some creativity in teaching, there also seems to be a belief among some bureaucrats and senior politicians that the right method coupled with the right ingredients will magically improve learning in our schools.  While graduation rates are improving and there have been changes introduced that make a difference in better addressing children’s individual needs, many of the new programs haven’t delivered.  There are still far too many children falling through the cracks.

Chris Hadfield followed his dream from childhood.  Ironically in this time of abundant choices, most children and adults don’t have the opportunities or the inner knowledge to realize their ambitions.  Still we often just tell them throughout childhood, especially at convocations, to follow their dreams.

We live in a world of specialists.  Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talks about “The 10,000-Hour Rule.”  In other words, in this era of accumulated knowledge and specialization, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of work or practice to become expert in most endeavours or professions.  Whoa Nelly, that’s a lot of hours!  No wonder kids need a dream and a great deal of passion to succeed.

What of the many without this burning ambition?  What about the kids in our specialized age who are generalists by temperament?  They’re not about to expend 10,000 hours to master a craft that doesn’t set them on fire.  What I would say then is to care about the person standing before you and bring integrity to your work.  These will help you find meaning in life.

As a generalist, I have had wonderful opportunities to work in various jobs over a lifetime.  As a school trustee, I have been able to bring this varied experience and knowledge to help influence schools and children’s lives.  While I want to encourage others to run for trustee, I won’t sugarcoat it.  Since the loss to direct local school taxation, there’s little formal power or remuneration attached to the position.  Most trustees are conscientious and it can be a lot of work.  It can also be frustrating, sometimes very frustrating, but there’s influence connected to the job that’s hard to beat. 

In an earlier post, I outlined the importance of assisting individual families and children by giving a little advice or making a phone call.  On a slightly larger scale, I was able to make an arrangement to sharpen 600 pairs of skates that were donated to a needy school.  Advocacy at pivotal points, being in the right place at the right time, helped roll out of the Pathways to Education and Empower Reading programs within our school board.  These two programs continue to work wonders for hundreds of students who struggle in school.

With two of my colleagues, we rewrote the school board’s special education policy to make it more responsive to the needs of children.  A number of trustees also worked to oppose the proposed alternative programme closure and the closure of Rideau High School, which if it had gone ahead, would have been severe blow to a needy community.

We helped develop a culture of equity at the OCDSB.  Recently our school board was among the first to address and support the educational rights of First Nations, Inuit and Metis students.  This is important both nationally and locally as more aboriginal families settle in Ottawa.

I'm in British Columbia right now and I've been hearing about the teachers' strike here. There has been 13 years of teacher labour unrest in B.C.  Trustees I've spoken to put the blame on the provincial government for the deadlock.  During last year’s teachers' unrest in Ontario, many trustees played the role of honest broker to prevent a reoccurrence of the B.C. experience.  School trustees through their work with the Ontario Public School Boards Association have influence in the development of new initiatives, such as mental health programs in schools, and OPSBA has the ultimate responsibility in financial matters to act as the employer in teacher and school board staff negotiations.

As I was saying, you meet the most interesting people in this work.  After the presentation, Chris Hadfield offered to sign his book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life.  As an aside, ABC is developing a sit-com based on the book. The casting possibilities should be interesting. I can't imagine who will play Hadfield but perhaps we may see Bill Shatner in yet another role, this time as Hadfield's oddball uncle. 

I was in line for the book signing a really long time.  As I waited, I had an opportunity to listen to Chris Hadfield answer questions and I noticed that he put a lot of thought into it. When it was finally my turn, I said, “Commander Hadfield, these book signings must be nearly as gruelling as going into space.”

Chris Hadfield started to laugh, really laugh, but then he stopped abruptly, studied my face, and said, “Seriously?  No!”  As an astronaut and teacher, Hadfield didn’t want to appear to minimize the real difficulties inherent to space travel.  Then he saw the twinkle in my eye, realized I was pulling his leg, and we both started to laugh again.

Our approaches may be as different as distant galaxies but astronauts, school trustees, and many caring people find common ground in helping to educate children.   Look at the trustee candidates in your area and consider running for trustee yourself.  There's an online resource to help get you started, http://elections.ontarioschooltrustees.org/en/index.html.  The deadline for nominations is September 12.

Few jobs offer such a great opportunity to make a difference.  Over my eight years as a school trustee, I learned a good deal.  There were many occasions to meet and work with some very good and thoughtful people ... and a chance to laugh with a man who had travelled to the heavens.  Overall, the experience was out of this world!

The views expressed in this post are personal opinions only.

Robin Williams' enduring legacy

I had a couple of posts in mind to start off the school year but the others will wait with this week’s tragic death of Robin Williams.  Because of the notion of choice often associated with the word suicide, I won’t call it that.  Death is death regardless of its cause.

Robin Williams in Patch Adams

Like many, I loved Robin Williams!  Somehow he became a quirky uncle who helped me through difficult times.  This particular scene from Good Morning, Vietnam has come to mind numerous times in school board meetings. When I was ill a few years back, I searched the Internet to find Robin Williams videos and split my sides laughing over many I found.  Somewhat ribald, his Dr. Roof piece (What if Dr. Ruth was a big black woman?) sent me into convulsions of laughter.  I’ve often wondered what Dr. Ruth thinks of it.  I bet she loves it!

His impromptu skit on the Tonight Show in 2006 of Angelina Jolie's infamous trip to Africa had everyone rolling on the floor with laughter. Think about it – an incredibly rich white woman goes to Africa with her entourage to adopt a child.  How absurd is that … but it took Williams and his zany insight to show us the irony.

Tragically, Robin Williams suffered from a chronic disease, depression.  From all accounts, he did everything right in treating both the disease and the addictions, which likely sprang from attempts to decrease his pain. 

Earlier this week, a Canadian police chief tweeted that Williams "could have chosen" differently. Others called Williams selfish. This is a man who gave his incredible gift of humour and time to millions and he was selfish?  Really?  Surviving these years with the pain of depression was likely a real act of courage, generosity and selflessness for Williams.

I’ve met police officers who understand that mental illness is just that, an illness.  They are kind and understanding in their approach.  I salute them particularly since they are often called upon to attend to people suffering with mental illness on a daily basis. 

But when a chief of police fails to understand, well it sets the tone for the entire force and reinforces the views of more prejudiced officers.   The tragic shootings of people who are mentally ill, very often people of colour such as Toronto's Sammy Yatim in 2013, is evidence of the systemic racism, ignorance and prejudice within police forces and frankly within society.

Mental illness is a disease.  When I was diagnosed with cancer a few years back, expensive medical resources were used in my treatment and everyone treated me with the utmost kindness.  Why is treatment for mental illness any different?

Mary Hamilton's article in The Guardian should be required reading for every journalist covering Williams' death.  Hamilton talks about the mental health care crisis in Britain but even in wealthy Ottawa, it is very difficult to find mental health treatment particularly for our young people.  Why is that?  Many people may not get overnight treatment for cancer, still I discovered first-hand that some treatments such as surgery are almost immediately available.  Rightfully we have an expectation that people shouldn’t wait for cancer treatment and we’re willing to make personal sacrifices to raise large sums to help find a cure for cancer.  The wonderful Terry Fox Run continues to serve as an example of what can be done.

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, "20% of Canadians will personally experience a mental illness in their lifetime."  This is a terrible toll in terms of suffering and lost productivity.  Why does the rate of depression continue to rise when there are programs to help prevent and treat mental illness?  I spoke about Dr. Stuart Shanker’s program in my last post.  We should be rolling this out in every school.

What makes mental illness different?  You know the answer.  In our hearts, we still believe mental illness is a moral shortcoming.  We often think those suffering with it are weak, selfish, or lack discipline … and we blame. 

Over the last couple of days, a number of comedians have spoken about depression and comedy as being opposite sides of the same coin.  As Hamilton states, this may not be the case or it may be an over-generalization but still ... on this question, Russell Brand's eulogy in The Guardian is particularly moving.  Does comedic genius spring from an effort to deal with the pain of depression and the human condition?  Does it come from a desperate attempt to distance oneself from others and prevent them from recognizing the illness?  Whatever it is, it speaks to the stigma and shame associated with this disease.

Space aliens can say the darndest things.  Like his TV persona Mork, Williams’ good heart was evidence of other worldliness.  Perhaps we all should take a page from his book and have the courage to sharpen our humour.  Amateur attempts at joke telling can give real pleasure especially when it helps turn the tables on annoying teenagers, not that my kids were ever annoying.  

Williams taught us much about ourselves but perhaps his greatest legacy may be in fostering a public conversation about mental illness.  This seems a fitting tribute of thanks for Robin Williams’ great spirit and comedic genius.


The views expressed in this post are personal opinions only.