Christa McAuliffe

No teacher has ever been better prepared to teach a lesson.

May your future be limited only by your dreams!

Christa McAuliffe (2 September 1948 – 28 January 1986) was an American teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, and was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Quotes

• No teacher has ever been better prepared to teach a lesson.
  • As quoted in American Heroes of Exploration and Flight (1996) by Anne E. Schraff, p. 102

• I have a vision of the world as a global village, a world without boundaries. Imagine a history teacher making history!
  • Christa McAuliffe 1948–1986 Framingham State College - Henry Whittemore Library

• Reach for it, you know. Go push yourself as far as you can.
  • Transcript - CNN Presents: CHRISTA MCAULIFFE REACH FOR THE STARS (22 January 2006

• What are we doing here? We're reaching for the stars.
  • "Christa McAuliffe 1948–1986" in TIME magazine (10 February 1986)

• May your future be limited only by your dreams!
  • As quoted in "New Hampshire Town Reeling From Shock, Grief" by Bob Drogin in Los Angeles Times (30 January 1986)

Disputed

• I Touch the Future — I Teach.
  • As quoted in "I Touch the Future —" : The story of Christa McAuliffe (1985) by Robert T. Hohler, p. 155; this was on a t-shirt which she brought on her shuttle baggage, but the expression might not have originated with her.
  • (RESPONSE) Though the expression might not have originated by Christa, she endorsed it and repeated it as captured on a YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZfKrXp-ghM , starting at the 7:39 mark. (Christa was speaking before various media microphones, including one microphone belonging to WJYY radio, a Concord, NH, station where Christa lived.) Also, in the biography of Christa by her mother, Grace Corrigan, the expression is attributed to Christa by former student (1975), Roger Chapan, who quoted Christa as saying: “I teach; I touch the future.” (See A Journal for Christa: Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space by Grace George Corrigan, 1993, ISBN 0-8032-1459-6, page 162) Regardless of who originated the expression (and it may very well have been Christa), it was Christa McAuliffe who popularized it and indelibly etched it into the minds of everyone in the world with her tragic passing.