An Oasis of Crumbling Concrete

The school building where I work is old.  Even older than it's age.  A 1960's-built travesty of architectural injustice that reflects the very pinnacle of generic institutional architecture with a splash of vomitous 1960's color.  The architect of Alcatraz prison would certainly be impressed with this place.  It wouldn't surprise me to find out that they were designed by the same guy.

The whole place smells.  The smells vary from room to room... sour milk, mildew/mold, body odor, school cafeteria food, rancid bathrooms, but none of them are pleasant.  The fresh airflow originally designed into the building was sealed up long ago in favor of an inefficient air conditioning system installed by the lowest bidder.  There is no other form ventilation beyond recycling the always humid and odorous air. 

I normally love old buildings and find that they have character, history and beauty.  This place is just ugly.  It's not an oasis by any stretch of the imagination.  At least not for the typical American, who arrives with high expectations of what their high school should look like. 

But our kids are not typical Americans.  Most are not Americans at all.  For them, the school is a safe zone, a beacon of hope, an oasis of familiarity through its diversity and unconditional care and giving from complete strangers.  Teachers, administrators, nurses, counselors and sometimes even doctors and psychologists. 

Teachers here write on desperately aging chalkboards and prepare for classes while sitting at a nearly 50 year old desk, with absolutely no regard for how awful this place might seem to the average onlooker.  For our students, this is a place that represents many different things.  As foundations shift and walls crack, chalkboards still do their work, cracks or not.  No student is perfect, no teacher is perfect and no school building is perfect.  It's what we do with those things that shows our resolve as educators.  Even on cracked chalkboards, we educate.

On this blog, I hope to provide at least a little look into that world.  The world of the cracked chalkboard.  These posts probably won't be about teaching in the classroom as much as they will be about the stories and events that I see and experience during my day.  For reasons that are probably obvious, I will never use my real name, nor anyone else's name.  I am going to do my best not to even specify the name of the city.  If you guess it, please refrain from posting that information in the comments.

Stay tuned for more...