Fall 2024
This summer, I had the opportunity to hear Jose Hernandez, a child born to migrant farm workers, who grew up to become a NASA astronaut, while attending a school nutrition conference. To say his story was an inspiration is an understatement. Jose was born in California to Mexican parents who worked as migrant farm workers, moving from town to town wherever they could find work. The family annually spent nine months in California working in agriculture in three different cities (southern, central, and northern CA) and three months in Mexico. Jose spent his childhood attending school and working in the fields alongside his family on weekends and when school was not in session. At 10 years old, he saw the Apollo 17 mission on TV and told his father, “I know what I want to be when I grow up. An astronaut.” Rather than rejecting his son’s dream as out of reach, or impossible to achieve, Jose’s dad validated his dream. In addition, he outlined to Jose a ‘5 Step Recipe for Success’ that he would need to follow if he wanted to realize his dream of getting into space:
“Find your goal.” - Clearly identify what it is you want to achieve
“Know how far you are.” - Research what it will take to achieve that goal and identify where you are in that process.
“Draw a roadmap.” - Map out what course(s) of action you will need to take to be successful at your goal.
“If you don't know how, learn.” - Understand what it is that people who have already achieved your goal have that you are lacking in and obtain those skills. For Jose, he came to realize that meeting the minimum requirements for NASA was not going to be enough to get him accepted. To be an astronaut, he also needed to know how to fly a plane, and be a master scuba diver, so he put himself through training in both to have the same credentials as those who had successfully been chosen by NASA to enter their space program.
“When you think you've made it, you probably have to work harder.” - Jose’s father stressed to him the importance of hard work as necessary to achieving any goal you have in life. In his younger years, this translated to his academics at school, and his work on weekends in the fields. As he got older, he applied it to his work in science, where he used knowledge as an electrical engineer to develop the first full-field digital mammography system for the early detection of breast cancer.
After being turned down several times by NASA for their astronaut program, Jose would add a sixth step to this recipe for success that his father had not included - Perseverance. Jose recognized that not every goal one sets in life lends itself to an easy roadmap for success. In fact, Jose was rejected eleven times by NASA before finally getting accepted into their astronaut program. Throughout all of these rejections, he learned the importance of continuing to develop skills necessary to meet with success, and glean from a rejection the positive - for Jose that was looking at the last line of each rejection letter as an invitation to apply again for the space program in the future, rather than a sign he should give up on his dream.
As I sat at the conference, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between Jose’s journey in life and how we, as educators, welcome students to do something similar every year that we see them— dream of what they want to be, and then try to get them on a trajectory to achieve that dream. As we start the 2024-2025 school year, I look forward to helping our kids identify their own goal in life, and providing them with the knowledge and skills necessary so that, like Jose Fernandez, they too, can ‘reach for the stars.’