Orbiting the classroom

Back-to-school | Fifty years later, educators reflect on the scholastic boost launched by Sputnik | Lynn Vincent

On an autumn night at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., the Woodlawn High School Colonels slugged it out on the gridiron. Sophomore Barry Walker sat in the student section, cheering under a starry sky—until a student sitting near him pointed up.

"There's Sputnik," the other kid said, indicating what looked like an especially bright star.

Across the stands, like leaves angling toward light, face after face turned skyward. Even some of the football players on the sidelines looked up to witness a technological marvel: the first successful guided orbit of Earth by a man-made object.

Then someone else sitting near Walker said quietly, "They're spying on us from up there."