Image from Pixabay Asking a child what they want to be when they grow up can be a great conversation opener. They will be very honest with you about their aspirations, and tell you how they are going to become a police officer, train driver, nurse or scientist. But as they grow older, and they learn more about the world around them and their potential role within it, children may become a little more circumspect. When they eventually leave school, many children simply don't know where they are headed, because they know very little about the job market. When I was 16, I was asked by my careers guidance tutor what I would do when I left school. I told him quite frankly that I wanted to be an astronaut . It wasn't an aspiration that was treated seriously, because there weren't many astronaut jobs going in 1972. And yet, as I developed my career around research, teaching and innovation, I did become an 'astronaut' of sorts - an explorer of learning and technolog