精东影业

Each summer in August, shortly before the school year begins, Eddie Ortiz makes the pilgrimage from New Jersey to Calvary Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire, where Christa McAuliffe is buried.

鈥淚t鈥檚 my way of getting ready for the new year,鈥� he says.

McAuliffe, of course, is the teacher who perished in the 1986 explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Ortiz recalls watching that tragedy play out on television at school, where his seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Campbell 鈥� one of 11,000 other educators who had applied to be the nation鈥檚 first teacher in space 鈥� regularly incorporated NASA source material and New York Times accounts of McAuliffe鈥檚 training regimen into his lesson plans.

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have a lot of heroes growing up,鈥� Ortiz says now. 鈥淪he was an ordinary person doing something extraordinary鈥� 鈥� so extraordinary, in fact, that at the moment of the explosion, what went through the youngster鈥檚 head were the words I鈥檓 going to be a teacher someday.

Five years after the Challenger explosion, Ortiz 鈥� whose parents never advanced past the sixth grade 鈥� became the first in his family to enroll in college. Four years after that, upon graduating from Montclair State University, he accepted an offer to teach social studies, English and English as a Second Language at North Bergen High School. With McAuliffe axioms tattooed on his arms 鈥� 鈥淩each for the Stars鈥� and 鈥淚 Touch the Future, I Teach鈥� 鈥� he channeled his hero every day.

But in 2018, nearly two decades into his career, Ortiz found himself troubled by a feeling of a mission still not completed. A colleague who鈥檇 recently gotten her Ph.D. from TC urged him to follow in her footsteps. That August, as he visited McAuliffe鈥檚 grave, the astronaut鈥檚 maxim that 鈥渆verything is a risk鈥� was much on his mind. 鈥淚 finally decided that Christa McAuliffe would have said, 鈥楪o for it,鈥欌�� he says. Two weeks later, thanks to some fast-tracking by TC鈥檚 Office of Admissions and some fast work of his own, Ortiz took a seat as an incoming master鈥檚 degree student in the English Education program.

The past two years have not been easy ones. Ortiz kept teaching full-time at North Bergen, even as he moved from his longtime residence in Hoboken to an apartment near the TC campus. Yet his sense of having come home was so immediate that he began collecting TC yearbooks (including one from 1917) and scouring E-Bay for vintage postcards of TC students in various locations around the campus. 

鈥淵ou can go to any school for pedagogy, but the humanity is what makes TC so special,鈥� he says.

You can go to any school for pedagogy, but the humanity is what makes TC so special.

鈥� Eddie Ortiz

Ortiz cites a poetry class he took began with Ruth Vinz, Enid & Lester Morse Professor of Teacher Education, inviting students to 鈥渢hink, notice and imagine in words and images鈥� the world around them. 

鈥淏y the end of the semester, I came to understand that the daily invitations were actually invitations to re-experience the world and our lives,鈥� says Ortiz. For his own students, then, literature wasn鈥檛 something to be absorbed because of its 鈥渋mportance,鈥� but instead, an interactive experience that offered an opportunity to make meaning by discovering and articulating one鈥檚 own feelings about love, injustice and other core aspects of being a person in the world.

That same invitation is implicit in TC鈥檚 commitment to inclusivity and social justice. 鈥淎ll perspectives are welcome and respected 鈥� all voices are heard,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t means a lot to me, as a Puerto Rican, Latinx and person of color, that TC can offer so much to people like me. And it鈥檚 so important at my school, where 88 percent of the students are Latinx, to see that people of color have an opportunity in a place like TC.鈥�  

This fall, Ortiz will enroll as a Ph.D. candidate in the TC English Education program. He鈥檒l keep teaching full-time at North Bergen, but down the road, he dreams of joining TC鈥檚 faculty.

Meanwhile, assuming it鈥檚 safe to travel, he has another visit planned to McAuliffe鈥檚 gravesite in August. 

鈥淚鈥檓 proud of what I鈥檝e accomplished,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd I like to think she would be proud as well.鈥�

— Steve Giegerich