Three golden moments

There are moments in time that shape who you are and who you become. They say that your school years are the best years of your lives, but for many people, school was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. In past blog posts I have related bad experiences of school and have questioned the relevance of current school practices to real world needs. Education is not the same as school. Sometimes schooling can get in the way of learning, but on this occasion I want to remember three golden moments that were instrumental in making me who I am today.

In July, 1969, I was 12 years old and living in the remote Shetland Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. I recall waking up very early in the morning, sneaking downstairs, and watching the live television coverage of the first moon landing. I remember watching the very grainy black and white images of the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin as they took their first tentative steps on the lunar surface, and thinking how incredible it was that man was actually on the moon. It was the spirit of adventure and discovery that really fueled my imagination and from then on I made models, collected artefacts and avidly studied space exploration. It was the first time in my life that I focused my attention and energy into learning a body of knowledge.

In 1972, during my time living in Beek, near Maastricht, Holland, I went on a school trip to Eindhoven, for a visit to the Evoluon - the Philips electronic giant's building constructed in the shape of a flying saucer. The Evoluon (now a major conference venue) was a science and technology museum with a difference. There were live demonstrations of scientific principles and new technologies. Here was where I first saw video conferencing, and robotic technology. This visit turned me on to thinking about the future and the role technology was going to play in all our lives. This moment was a turning point for me in terms of the awareness I suddenly had about what technology could do to transform our experiences, our relationships, our lives.

In 1973 while I was in my final year at AFCENT International School, in Brussum, Holland, I faced a bit of a dilemma. At the time, the curriculum was very gender biased. Girls were not allowed to take more than one science subject, but could study both art and music. Boys could do as many science subjects as they wished, but were only allowed to choose either music or art. I wanted to do both, but was limited to art, which was my strongest subject. So I began to subvert the rules. I spoke to the American music teacher, Larry Domingue, who was a liberal, progressive teacher. I asked him if he minded whether I could sit in the back of his lessons as an extra student. He smiled, and said I would be very welcome. I missed a whole year of PE - Physical Education - to do this, and was marked absent on every single occasion. The teachers knew what was going on, but because of my passion for music, turned a blind eye. I found that I could sometimes bend and subvert the rules and I learnt to create my own personalised pathway through my final year in school, something that has stood me in good stead throughout my professional life.    

These three golden moments in time have instilled within me a spirit of discovery, a sense of wonder, and the agency to make my own way in life, even if it means breaking the rules occasionally. What are your golden moments in time?

Image by NASA


Three golden moments by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.