If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of continual engagement with knowledge and culture beyond specific commemorative months.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson's quote reflects his disappointment if he is only remembered during Black History Month, suggesting that true education and recognition of historical figures should not be confined to a single time period. This statement challenges educators to engage their audiences year-round and emphasizes the ongoing relevance of African American contributions to science and education.
In practice
This quote can be shared during educational seminars to encourage continuous learning about diversity.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
Every single minute matters, every single child matters, every single childhood matters.
Education demands, then, only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.
In order to learn, one must change one's mind.
My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.
The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.
Academia does not provide many opportunities for immediate gratification. You work for two years on a project, it takes two more years to get it published, and then you start hoping someone might read it.
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