When John Glenn was 8 years old, he and his father drove past a field where a man was offering rides in an open-cockpit airplane. That first brush with flight led Glenn to a career serving his country as a fighter pilot, astronaut and U.S. senator.

Glenn appeared at COSI via videoconference Oct. 21 to urge passage of Issue 37 to re-open the closed Downtown facility.

The event provided an ironic juxtaposition. The latest conferencing technology showcased a large-screen projection of Glenn speaking and answering questions from children he could see on his monitor, while just a few yards away, exhibits lie under sealed cases and dusty tarps with heavy locks. Glenn’s visage hovered over the closed experiments and interactive attractions as his voice echoed down empty display areas and darkened corridors.

Glenn spoke to Toledo Free Press Oct. 22 from Columbus.

Toledo Free Press: There were no science museums to spark interest in technology when you were growing up. What inspired your interest in science?

John Glenn: My dad and I were driving one day past a field where a guy was taking people up for rides in an open-cockpit airplane. We went up, both of us strapped in the back of this two-winger wacko airplane, and I was just fascinated with it. That was sort of my first hands-on experience. From then on I made model airplanes and wanted to fly, and later on there was an opportunity in college for a government program, civilian pilot training. The government paid for you to fly, and you got your private pilot’s license and you could get physics credit for it in college.

TFP: You haven’t waded into many political issues this election year. What inspired you to speak out for COSI?

Glenn: Time has moved on now into a more technical and international time of globalization where our kids are competitive with other kids around the world. For some people it may be a little hard to visualize that but what our kids do in school, and after school and the incentives or the inspiration we give them is going to largely determine whether they have the good jobs of the future.

Some years ago, Dick Riley was secretary of education in Washington, and he was very disturbed by a report he got, a Third International Math and Science Study, and it was a report done in 41 nations over a three-year period, particularly centered on math and science. What they found in that report was, of these 41 nations in the world, our kids up to about the fourth grade, are in the top two or three nations in the world in arithmetic and science and understanding technology. But by the time our average student graduates high school, we are two or three from the bottom.

Dick asked me to head up a national commission of educators, scientists and industrial people, and what we found was that much of the problem is in the area of teaching. Twenty-five percent of our math teachers are teaching out of field. They never had math training to teach math. Twenty percent of our science teachers are the same way. That report is 10 years old, and I wish I could say it’s gotten a lot better, but it hasn’t.

Another factor was 30 percent of both math and science teachers leave the profession within three years, and 50 percent leave within five years.

TFP: Did the study address the global impact of falling behind?

Glenn: We are not putting the emphasis on this as other nations are. We once had a better-educated general citizenry, particularly in math, science and technology, and we out competed other nations in those areas. Along with that, we did more in basic fundamental research. We learned the new things first, and with that educated citizenry and a little bit of investment, new businesses were formed and we were the nation that led the whole world in new and better jobs for the future.

That’s where COSI fits in today; it’s an excellent way of exciting and inviting the kids and inspiring the kids to a hands-on approach to think about things and be curious about things and learn how to put their own ideas to it. If we are going to compete, if we are going to have good jobs in Toledo and Lucas County and every place else in this country, if we are going to be the leaders as we have been throughout our history, it is important to put an emphasis on our young people and helping them understand math and science. We can sit around; we can gripe about it; we can ask to be put on import restrictions and export restrictions and we can be critics of fair trade and all this sort of thing, but America is a country that just out competes everybody else.

TFP: Have you seen an emphasis on math and science in your international travels?

Glenn: I have been in facilities similar to COSI in Japan, China, Spain and France. I see what other nations are doing and they have wonderful facilities like this, school groups coming through and the kids are all excited about things. They understand science better. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that we need more scientists and engineers and people taking engineering work in this country. We don’t have it right now; we’re behind other countries, and if we’re going to catch up, it’s going to come as we put more emphasis into our schools and facilities like COSI that have a special niche inspiring our kids.

The cost of the COSI levy is about $5 a year; that’s a tiny little thing for a big benefit.

TFP: There is opposition to the levy from people who believe this should remain a private organization that should not rely on taxpayer dollars.

Glenn: COSI is not there to make a profit. It is there for one purpose and that’s to benefit the kids. Now the government, whether federal government, state or local, supports a lot of entities that are nonprofit organizations or gives them special tax benefits to encourage their private operations. And that’s where COSI fits. Any money that is gained is turned back into the facility. It’s a perfect arrangement as far as I am concerned.

TFP: What inspired you to make an endorsement for Toledo’s COSI?

Glenn: In Toledo, Lucas County, you are in international competition for business and jobs, and you will be in the indefinite future. Nobody is going to role back globalization, and we have already seen what happens with car plants being shut down and manufacturing being outsourced. It’s not just about cheap labor, although people like to blame that. These other countries are better preparing their kids for this future and working to out compete us more than ever before, and that’s what gets me into this thing.

Our apartment building here in downtown Columbus is on the 19th floor, and it so happens I’m looking out right now on COSI across the river here. I know what they did here in Columbus, and I have been over here many times. There is special equipment and exhibits and things that can’t be in every classroom. If you look at this as an extension of the school system, it makes sense, and we need this, not only in Toledo and here in Ohio, but we need it all across our country.

TFP: When you talk about America falling behind, I hear great frustration in your voice.

Glenn: I do feel very strongly about it. Yeah, I am getting old now, but do I want to see this country go downhill for my kids and grandchildren and their children? No, I certainly don’t. America has maintained a standard of living and we’ve been a preeminent nation in the world; we’ve been able to determine our own economic future. We’ve been pretty self-sufficient in this area and we’ve led the world, and now that’s under very serious competition.

We should be leading the world, worrying about whether our kids are going to get through or not.

There’s no doubt about we have the best college and university system in the world, but that lead is not guaranteed forever. One of the former presidents of The Ohio State University visited China with some educators, and she came back and told me that in one of the briefings, the Chinese said they are planning 100 new universities to open in the next 10 years. In the next 10 years. They were a little apologetic, because they said their original plan was to do 200. They will center mainly in the areas of the physical sciences, science and technology.

That’s the competition our kids are going to be running into, and we can’t just sit back and let that happen. We should have better programs for our teachers, better training for our teachers, better pay for our teachers.  There are just so many factors that we need if we are going to truly be the world leaders in the future. That’s where COSI in Toledo fits into a tiny little niche in that grand scheme for the whole world. It’s a local thing that is for the kids in Toledo and Lucas County and Northwest Ohio, and if we don’t inspire our kids in this direction then I don’t know what our future is. It’s going to be downhill, and I don’t want to see that happen.

TFP: If your Democratic Party captures the White House, will you reach out to Barack Obama and stress this message?

Glenn: I already have. Only briefly, but I told him I would like to talk to him later about some of these things. I have very pleasantly noted, the last three or four weeks, there’s been a great deal more talk from Obama about science and research.  I don’t know that my talking to him had any big impact on him.

I know the previous times the COSI levy just barely lost, and I’m hoping this time it will tip over the other direction. What’s good for the kids of Toledo is good for the community and good for business and good for jobs and good for the future and … good for everything.

Biography: John H. Glenn, Jr.

• Born in Cambridge, Ohio, on July 18, 1921, the son of John Herschel and Clara Sproat Glenn.
• Graduated from New Concord High School and attended Muskingum College. Shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Glenn enlisted in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program and became a Marine pilot. He flew 59 combat missions in the South Pacific during World War II. When the Korean conflict began, Glenn asked for combat duty and flew 63 missions.
• Joined the Naval Air Test Center’s staff of flyers. Served as a test pilot for Naval and Marine aircraft, including the FJ3, the F7U Cutlass and the F8U Crusader. In 1957, he set the speed record flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes.
• Entered the space program as a participant in the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics’ “G” force tests. In 1959, NASA selected him as one of the first seven astronauts in the U.S. space program. On Feb. 20, 1962, atop an Atlas rocket, he rode into space and piloted the Friendship 7 spacecraft around the globe three times, becoming the first American to orbit the earth.
• In 1974, Glenn was elected an Ohio senator. He was chief author of the 1978 Nonproliferation Act, served as chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee from 1978 until 1995, and sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. He was a contender for the vice presidential nomination three times and ran in the Democratic primaries as a presidential candidate in 1984.
• In 1998, Glenn flew on the space shuttle Discovery and on Oct. 29, 1998, he became the oldest human ever to venture into space.

Source:  The John and Annie Glenn Museum Foundation

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