Teach-Secondary-14.1

Dame Maggie Aderin-PocockMBE on how her schooling was affected by constant change, undiagnosed dyslexia and a fierce determination to explore the mysteries of the cosmos... What I learnt at school What kind of student were you at school? I went to 13 different schools. I do lots of school visits now where I speak to kids, and when I tell them that, they look at me and ask, ‘ How naughty were you? ’ It was actually due tomy parents breaking up when I was quite young, so I was sometimes withmymumand sometimes withmy dad, and some of schools unfortunately just closed. I was quite disengaged with school at first. I have dyslexia –which I now see as my superpower – but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was inmy 40s, so I found reading and writing quite hard, and was generally put in what used to be called the ‘remedial’ classes. I felt that school didn’t like me and that I didn’t like school – but I’d always had these dreams of becoming a space scientist, and finally decided to take advantage of changing schools again by trying really hard to get into the upper streams. For my last four years of schooling I was incredibly studious, barely even watching TV at home. What impact did changing schools so often have on your social experiences of school? 13 schools works out as almost a new school for each year of my education. My way of dealing with all the chopping and changing was to become the school clown – I used to love speech and drama. I didmake good friends, but often I’d have joined another school by the following year. I soon learned how to fit in quite rapidly, having become so used to frequent change. Tome, the primary/ secondary transition was just a case of me moving to another school. I don’t remember thinking ‘ Oh, this is secondary, ‘big school’ now,’ or anything like that. It was just, ‘ Oh, here’s another change .’ How did your interest in space first develop? I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in space. I was born in 1968, so I don’t remember the moon landings themselves, but I do remember the massive impact they had. Right from the get-go, I was fascinated with them, which was enhanced by watching things like The Clangers , and later Star Trek. That was big for me, especially Lt. Uhura. She was my role model. I wanted to follow in her footsteps by one day setting foot on the Starship Enterprise . Who were your most memorable teachers? I had a teacher called Colonel Andrews, who was ex-military and taught us what was then general science.We’d do things like go out and use jam jars to collect marsh gas froma nearby pond and then set fire to it. Health and safety concerns might prevent that now, but it’s those kind of hands-on experiments – dissecting a frog, making concoctions in chemistry – that really capture the imagination. What are your general impressions of the ways in which science is now typically taught in schools? I think there’s been a tendency towards pulling back from those hands-on experiments and experiences, which is unfortunate. I’d far rather see that ramped up, because it’s what people remember most from their science lessons, and what really helps to reinforce the theory that students learn. Do you feel that enough progress beenmade in giving girls the freedomand encouragement to study physics, should they wish to? I think things are improving, but too slowly. I’ve met girls who tell me themselves, ‘ Girls don’t do physics ’.When looking around their classroom, I’ll notice that these girls will have been seeing posters of ‘the great and the good’ of physics –Newton, Einstein, sometimes even Professor Beaker from The Muppets – but not one female physicist. We need to highlight more fantastic role models –women from the past and present who have done amazing things in physics and STEMmore generally.We’re getting there in terms of breaking those stereotypes, but we could be getting there faster. Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE is a space scientist, having worked on the Gemini South telescope in Chile and the Aeolus Earth observation satellite among other projects, and a science educator, regularly visiting schools around the country. She is also an ambassador for the support organisation Made By Dyslexia, co-presenter of the BBC show The Sky at Night and presents content for BBC Bitesize, including a series of 10 GCSE science videos due to launch later this month – see bbc.co.uk/bitesize for more details 21 teachwire.net/secondary C L A S S O F T H E PA S T