The singular magic of having learned from Christa McAuliffe

Grief still catches in MaryJo Drewn’s throat when she tries to talk about the Challenger tragedy.

She can still feel the harrowed silence of the auditorium at Concord High School, where she and other students gathered to watch the space shuttle launch in January of 1986. 

Moments earlier, the room full of young adults buzzed with a shrill chorus of noisemakers. A pall of confusion settled over the room when, 73 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle exploded. “You could hear a pin drop.”

But when Drewn thinks of Christa McAuliffe, who respected every student’s personhood and who demonstrated that history belonged to each one of them, her voice sings with effervescent laughter.

“I will always remember that she was an awesome teacher,” Drewn said. “Her class on American women — it was the first social studies class I took that I actually loved.”

Christa McAuliffe’s students say she was an exemplary teacher. She made learning practical for everyone. She lifted students out of their despondency and insisted on their participation. She amplified ordinary voices in her teaching of social studies, and she empowered young women to see themselves shaping the course of American history. For the students who would become teachers themselves, she provided the blueprint they hope to honor.

Graduates of the class of 1986, including Drewn, passed through Christa’s classes and followed her process of applying to the Teacher in Space program more closely than any other students. 

When she was selected to venture into space, they celebrated her triumph. When she spoke at their senior assembly, they gathered to bid her goodbye on the steps of Concord High. When she died aboard the Challenger, their hearts broke.

Forty years later, they continue to hold their love for their teacher and their enduring sorrow over her untimely death in the same open palm.

Drewn remembers three consecutive summers in the 1980s when she worked coating license plates for the state’s Department of Safety, her mother’s employer at the time. She was sitting in the office one day in July of 1985, when Christa was selected to be the first ordinary citizen to go to space.

She tore off her Walkman and leapt from her seat: “Oh my God! They just picked Christa!”

While she prepared her college applications later that year, she reached out to Christa, who was training for the Challenger launch in Houston, Texas, to ask for a recommendation. Christa’s vote of confidence helped land Drewn at the University of Southern Maine, but it was the letter that accompanied her recommendation that left a lasting impression.

“This is her sense of humor: She said how things were going, and she mentioned, ‘I’m still trying to get used to my makeup running all the time because of the hot lights from the camera.’ That’s her, just bubbly and laughing all the time,” Drewn said.

For Tammy Hickey, Christa’s sense of decency and sincerity of heart were the underpinnings of her open personality.

As Christa mulled her answers to her space program application, recruiting suggestions from her students, Hickey quietly nurtured the certainty that among thousands of educators nationwide, her teacher would be chosen. “I just knew she was going to get it. I couldn’t imagine her not getting it,” she said.

The reason was simple, and patently obvious, to Hickey, who’d been in Christa’s homeroom and history class: Christa was an adult that students respected because she respected them. She was personable, not reprimanding. She looked down on no one.

“In the hallways, she was more like a friend,” Hickey recalled. “She was just a special person who loved to teach.”

During her training to travel aboard the Challenger and withstand the physical demands of space flight, Christa returned to Concord High with samples of space ice cream for students to taste. She told them how weightlessness felt and entertained their silliest questions, like how going to the bathroom works in zero-gravity.

She sent Hickey a postcard from Houston that she’s held onto in a big folder of high school mementos. The truth is that Christa left Hickey with more than a piece of paper. 

Hickey works as a physical education teacher at Buffalo Creek Middle School in Palmetto, Florida. She didn’t enter into the teaching profession because of Christa, she said, but she became the kind of educator she is because of the kind of educator Christa was.

“We all looked up to her before she was going to be the first teacher in space, so I’m not saying this because she was famous. It’s because it’s important that you make these kids feel like they’re people,” Hickey said. “Her two sayings stick with me to this day as a teacher: I really do touch the future, and you really do tell your students to reach for the stars. She was just a good example.”

That’s the case for Holly Merrow and Kris Coronis-Jacques, too. Like Hickey, both studied under Christa and both became teachers themselves.

Merrow, who teaches students in grades two through five in Belfast, Maine, still remembers Christa with awe. After she was chosen to go to space, Christa hired students, including Merrow, to help with hosting dinner parties. Even with her training, her involvement at the school and the demands of family life, Christa prepared all the food herself that she served to guests.

“She was still in her robe getting ready once, and she turned and said, ‘I need someone to help me frost this cake.’ And I remember thinking that one time, ‘Why the heck is she cooking all this food?’ It’s amazing that she did all the work that she did.”

These days, Merrow’s students turn to her in awe.

She recalled an occasion when a student chose to profile Christa for a project on heroic historical figures. Beaming with excitement over the girl’s choice, Merrow brought to school her “giant scrapbook” full of newspaper clippings, patches, stickers, magazine covers and yearbook tributes to Christa.

“She said to me, ‘You’re living history!’ I thought it was really cool,” Merrow said.

Coronis-Jacques, who is a fifth-grade teacher in Hopkinton, shares Merrow’s wonder about Christa — about her extraordinary accomplishments and her ordinary authenticity. Her recollection of the story of Christa’s application to the Teacher in Space program shines in more vivid color:

“She was like, ‘You’ll never guess what I did last night. At the 11th hour, I filled out the application, and I ran into the post office in my pajamas because it had to be postmarked by a certain date.’ She always made herself human, like, ‘Even I procrastinate, and I can still get stuff done.’ She didn’t make it like this standard that you can’t reach as a human being. She just was so real with everybody.”

Christa’s light shone brightly, and an exceptional sadness washed over the school when it was extinguished.

Coronis-Jacques remembers the memorial service hosted in the school gym as a dark day of profound mourning. Cliques dissipated. Adults set their grief aside to support students.

“It didn’t matter who you were. If you were crying, you got a hug,” she said.

These memories, although painful, are hard to stifle on the occasion of an anniversary. 

Laura Martino, a student of Christa’s who graduated in 1983, chooses to remember her for cultivating a welcoming environment in class. Then a resident of small-town Bow, Martino found attending Concord High intimidating. Christa’s warmth coaxed her out of her shell.

Around each anniversary of the Challenger tragedy, Martino tributes Christa by sharing memories of her on Facebook with friends.

The platform is a double-edged sword. The already unshakeable memory of Christa’s death became impossible to ignore in a digital age, agreed MaryJo Drewn, but so did the singular magic of having personally known Christa McAuliffe.

“The constant reminder is there, but it’s a good thing in a way because it makes us remember things that I think were really important, especially today, given the reality that we’re living in,” Drewn said. “I remember her, and she was such a good person. We need to remember people like that, because there’s so much terrible negativity and hate in the world. We need more people like that.”

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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