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| Morgan (left) sits beside Christa McAuliffe, as her backup, in 1986. NASA/Reuters |
Shuttle launch one giant leap for teacherkind
When Endeavor takes off for the International Space Station Wednesday, a teacher-turned-astronaut will have made good on a decades-old dream.
from the August 8, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Clay, a smoke jumper who parachuted into forest fires, wasn't surprised or worried for the voyage that drew 11,000 applicants. It was, in some ways, Barbara's greatest field trip ever – and he was used to those.
That same adventurous spirit made her a magnet for children, Clay says. After earning a degree in human biology from Stanford University and a teaching credential from Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Calif., Barbara began her career in 1974 on Montana's Flathead Indian Reservation, teaching remedial reading and math. Four years later, the Morgans were off to Ecuador, where Barbara taught English and science to third graders. On Christmas Day, they took a 100-mile trip through the Amazon in a leaky, dugout canoe – and passed the "School Without a Name."
"That's where I want to teach!" Barbara cried.
"She just loved ... the challenge of teaching in an exotic and wonderful place," Clay says.
But it was in McCall, the former logging town of 2,500, that she would spend most of her teaching years. Friends and colleagues there describe Barbara's teaching style and rapport.
"She was like the pied-piper," says Peter Johnson, a friend of the Morgans for 20 years.
Fellow teacher Kathy Phelan describes a classic Barbara technique: When a child acted up, she made it a lesson in classroom citizenship. "She realized you can't really teach until you have all the students working together," Ms. Phelan says.
Barbara created the same adventures for her students that she'd later carve out for herself. After a fire consumed a chunk of nearby forest, she sectioned off an acre for her class to study, teaching the signs of ecological recovery.
Amy Kulesza, Mr. Kulesza's daughter, was in Barbara's classes from 1980 to 1982. "You didn't just learn; you experienced things," she says – whether that was making sweaters with a spindle, painting a mural on the wall that faced the classroom windows, or sipping hot chocolate at Star Nights. "To this day, I can point out constellations to my friends' kids," she says.
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