Diary

16 October 2014

After speaking with a young mother, I started to  remember how difficult Kindergarten year can be for everyone, especially with local classes here having to be put into trailers. In NYC, they actually teach some classes in hallways, because of the lack of space. When people get older, for instance, my own old self, they forget about public school systems needing expansion. What can be done?

Some believe in closing down the small, decaying, neighborhood schools, and having a gigantic, concrete, windowless, energy-efficient, centralized building for K through 12. I believe that's dangerous, mixing helpless, tiny Kindergarteners in with high school seniors.

When I see non-colonial, concrete buildings or those new, light-colored, brick mega-buildings, I get homesick for Virginia. Here in the West, the light, rocky soil is so different from Virginia's espresso-colored, richer soil. When it rains in Virginia, there are sidewalks full of fat earthworms for those headed out to go fishing, and barbecuing in Great Falls Park or Lake Accotink.

Why can't a historic school building be expanded, and retrofitted with those necessary x-ray machines to prevent school shootings? Why do all the precious, historic, ivy-covered, brick colonial architecture have to be replaced with schools resembling airports, or airplane hangars?

Why not require all grades to wear school uniforms and have a standardized, I.B. curriculum?  The facade of any new construction or "smart boards" will fade. True literacy (AP exam-focused teaching) will last the children. If children are not taught in smaller classes, e.g. ten students to one teacher, at smaller schools (150 total students per school building), they'll slip through the cracks.