No Substitute for Experience: Learning from a Launch

  Written by: Matthew Deevers, PhD – Executive Director 

My son and I recently had the opportunity to stand on a beach in Florida as NASA launched the Mars rover Perseverance into outer space. An Atlas V rocket carried the rover into space, leaving Earth at roughly 10,000 miles per hour, about 13 times the speed of sound. From where we were standing – miles from the actual launch site – the rocket was a small speck arcing high over our heads before the sonic boom from takeoff reached us.

I have seen dozens of televised rocket launches. I have learned about rocket propulsion and the difference between the speeds of sound and light. I understood these things, but I did not know them. Until I experienced a launch first-hand, I didn’t get it. Now, my perspective has been forever changed.

Walking back to the car, I thought about the limitations of my own knowledge, experience, and perspective. I have read countless books and articles about laws, institutional rules, social norms, biases, and prejudices that marginalize people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, individuals with disabilities, and those without financial resources.  I have accepted how I, as a cisgender, white, middle-class man, benefited from these systems of oppression. 

I have learned these things. I understand them. I believe them. But I cannot know what it’s like to be a Black, Latinx, Native American, gay, bisexual, or transgendered man. I will never know what it’s like to be a woman. And though disability and poverty can affect anyone at any time in life, I have never personally experienced them. When it comes to these issues, I will never have a “rocket launch” moment. I will never know.

I cannot escape my own privilege. What I can do is use my privilege to highlight systemic inequities in cradle to career educational outcomes. I can provide a platform to showcase the diverse perspectives and experiences of others. I can direct my organization’s energy and efforts toward creating and sustaining more equitable systems for today’s students and families. Perhaps most importantly, I can encourage colleagues in similar positions of influence and privilege to do the same. 

This is the challenge I am issuing to myself and others: in the coming months and years, how will we lift up the voices of those who, for too long, have not been heard? How will we prove we have learned enough to listen to those who know?