Christa, in her own words

Christa McAuliffe had a bubbly warmth that rendered her immediately familiar, a contagious enthusiasm for learning and sharing knowledge, and an unending desire to inspire others to dream big. 

She captivated not only her students and the Concord community but the entire nation — and even the world at large — as the first teacher chosen to venture to space.

Throughout all the worldwide attention, she was an ordinary person, just like the people she relished having her history students study. 

She had an infectious sense of humor, one that shone through in interviews, in NASA training and among her loved ones. Upon returning home from the selection announcement, she slept in one morning until 11 a.m.

“It was wonderful. Now I only have one set of wrinkles under my eyes,” she told the Monitor in 1985.

After entering the limelight, a senator told her the hardest part of dealing with media attention was answering the same questions over and over again.

“I laugh when I think about it because that’s what teachers do all the time. We teach the same things and answer the same questions year after year,” she said to the Monitor.

The best way to learn about Christa is to let her tell you herself. To that end, the Monitor has sifted through its archive and curated a selection of quotes to show who she was as a person and the values she held close.

Here she is, indelible as ever, in her own authentic voice.

On ordinary people

Christa was a lifelong journaler. She found comfort in putting her thoughts to paper and valued the use of journals and first-person accounts as primary historical sources in her teaching.

Her proposed Teacher in Space project was a three-part journal chronicling the experiences of the Challenger voyage.

“I would humanize it,” Christa told the Monitor after her selection in 1985. “People would say, ‘There are real people up there.’”

She hoped this message would especially resonate in classrooms around the world.

“I’ve always been very concerned that ordinary people have not been given their place in history,” she said. “I need to have that link up with the students, because if the students don’t see themselves as a part of history, they don’t really get involved. I would like to humanize the space age by giving the perspective of a non-astronaut. I think the students will look at that and say that an ordinary person is contributing to history, and if they can make that connection, they are going to get excited about history and the future.”

On living in Concord

When it came time to pay her local property taxes in 1981, Christa arrived at City Hall an hour before the deadline.

“I always pay the last day. It’s a tradition,” she told the Monitor. 

She was known for running up against the clock, including when it came to arriving at Concord High School for her classes. As she later told the country in different interviews, she even mailed in her Teacher in Space application the day before the deadline after finalizing the bulk of it right before. It was part of her personality, one many found endearing.

“I really don’t mind paying for city services,” she said after paying her property taxes, which had gone up $300 from the previous year. “I like the place. It’s nice knowing that wherever you go, you’re likely to run into someone you know. I like to do outdoorsy things, and you can certainly do them here.”

She and her husband had signed a petition earlier that year urging the school board to vote against the consolidation of neighborhood schools.

“It’s friendly. It’s family-oriented,” she said in the interview at City Hall. “I like the neighborhood schools. Put that in there. I really like the neighborhood schools.”

On becoming the Teacher in Space

In the hallway outside the press room where Vice President Bush would soon announce the Teacher in Space, Christa stood talking to Ann Bradley, a NASA senior official, who tipped her off.

Bradley told her that her husband would have to stock up on a year’s worth of cornflakes to feed her children.

Christa’s joyful shout echoed throughout the hallway.

 “Then I felt my knees growing weak, but the nine other teachers hugged me and told me they’d help me get through it,” she told the Monitor.

She and the other teachers went out to the stage, where the whole world learned what Christa had just found out: She would be the Teacher in Space.

Bush’s televised announcement was followed by a media frenzy as reporter after reporter sought comment from Christa.

She moved around the room from interview to interview, pinching her cheeks as she went.

“I’m still floating in the air and I don’t know when I’ll come back to Earth,” she said.

Reporters asked her why she thought she’d been chosen. 

“I feel I’m a really good communicator,” she said. “I love people. I enjoy my job. I feel that I’m real enthusiastic about teaching, but all ten of us were like that and I’m not really sure what extra edge I had over somebody else. I think they felt I was somebody everybody could identify with.”

The question kept coming up.

“I still don’t have a good answer for that one because I just don’t know,” she said in subsequent interviews.

Still, she had come prepared to the selection announcement with a talisman for good luck.

“My mother told me jade brings good luck. So I wore her jade bracelet,” she told the Monitor.

On education beyond the classroom

Christa organized field trips and put together simulations for her students. Her law class in the spring of 1984 visited Franklin Pierce Law Center, District Court and the state prison. 

While at District Court, the class heard the case of a Concord High School student who had been convicted of drunk driving.

“It was uncomfortable on both sides. Hopefully, in seeing that, some of the kids would think twice,” she told the Monitor.

At the state prison, the group met with a woman sentenced to 8-12 years for hiding her boyfriend’s drugs.

“She wasn’t a tough person,” Christa said. “She just got caught up in something. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s so easy for kids to get pressured into doing things. Someone else got the stuff but you’re there. That’s why I think it hit home.”

As the faculty advisor for the Close Up group, which provided students opportunities to learn more about their state and federal governments, Christa organized a trip to Washington, D.C. and worked with students ahead of time to cover topics such as civil rights and social welfare.

“We’ll see parts of government that other people might not see: cabinet offices, government agencies and representatives’ offices. That’s quite an opportunity for a high school student,” she told the Monitor in 1984.

On dreaming big

When Christa decided to apply for the Teacher in Space project, she told the students in her classes that she was submitting an application. Throughout the selection process, she kept them updated whenever she had more information to share.

“I always asked my students to go seek what they feel they can do and reach a little higher. This gives students an opportunity to see somebody reach and try for something. If I can try for this, they can strive for something,” she told the Monitor right after her selection.

Reaching high became one of the points of inspiration she brought to her new role.

“Part of me sees a goal, and if it’s not realistic, I might alter it, but another part of me likes to push myself and do new things,” she said.

This story is part of our series, ‘Christa’s Legacy: Concord’s pioneer woman, the world’s teacher.’ To read more visit www.concordmonitor.com/christas-legacy.

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