If you needed a little pick-me-up today, you should know that one of television’s most beloved personalities just went out of his way to inspire the next generation to follow their dreams: David Attenborough just told a class of second-graders that any of them could one day grow up to stare at animals and describe what they’re doing.
Amazing! It looks like Attenborough has this whole “role model” thing down to a T!
Attenborough, the longtime host of celebrated nature documentaries like Planet Earth, generously lent his time to Mrs. Rothbury’s second-grade class from PS 138 in New York City yesterday to teach the students about the ins and outs of a career in the field of staring at animals and then describing everything the animals do.
“If you work hard and always make sure to stare very hard at animals whenever you get the chance, then one day any one of you could be a person who looks at different creatures and says what those creatures are doing, just like me,” Attenborough told the students his inspirational speech. “It may be a rough road, and you may need to start off doing low-level tasks like looking at a goose walking in a circle and saying, ‘Here’s a goose that’s walking in a circle.’ That’s how it was for me early in my career, but if you stick with it, then one day you’ll find yourself looking at a lioness eating a wildebeest and saying, ‘The lioness has made a fresh kill’ for the BBC.”
Attenborough also told the lucky students that it was never too early to indulge their passion for looking at animals and saying what they’re doing. He told an amazing story about how, long before he was working for television, he would stare at birds through his window and yell at his family about what the birds were doing, just because he loved doing it.
The Blue Planet host then encouraged the children to go out into the woods to stare at all the animals they could find and start saying what they were doing. Even if there was nobody to hear them, they could whisper to themselves important phrases like “the squirrel is climbing” or “the bears are mating with each other,” which would be important practice if they ever wanted to look at and narrate animals later in life.
It’s always amazing to see a legendary figure like David Attenborough encouraging children to reach for the stars! This incredible broadcaster may have just inspired the next generation of people who are shown video footage of animals and then say, “I know what’s happening here. Let me tell you all about what this animal is up to.” Kudos to Sir Attenborough for reminding these kids that there’s nothing they can’t do!
