{"id":808,"date":"2007-10-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chisnell.www216-119-142-248.a2hosted.com\/chizblog\/?p=808"},"modified":"2017-08-06T05:24:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T05:24:17","slug":"feel-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/feel-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Feel of the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do joy, nostalgia, and sadness feel like when you experience them at the same time?\u00a0They feel like my walk through Royal Oak Middle School this last Saturday evening at the Open House.<\/p>\n

As a premiere, it was well done.\u00a0Administration, school board, teachers, parents, students, former Dondero teachers, even the mayor were in attendance.\u00a0\u00a0Every floor had tables with volunteers offering information and food.\u00a0\u00a0Videos, clothing, and other historical reproductions were on sale.<\/p>\n

\"\"And the building itself is simply extraordinary.\u00a0For so many years, those of us who loved Dondero begged\u00a0for it to be preserved, restored.\u00a0\u00a0The 1927 architecture is preserved (and even some of our old favorite \u201cfeatures\u201d like the Stairway to Nowhere!), and the changes largely make great sense.\u00a0\u00a0The cafeteria is no longer a mismatched labyrinth, the Media Center walls have been adjusted to create work areas, teachers have plenty of planning spaces, and the small school feeling has been preserved by isolating the grades on different floors.\u00a0\u00a0But I don\u2019t want to write about the changes.\u00a0\u00a0Read these\u00a0elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s frankly odd to think about.\u00a0\u00a0My grandfather was part of the first graduating class from the building; it was there that he met my grandmother.\u00a0\u00a0I still remember believing in the first few weeks of my teaching in Royal Oak (that\u2019s 1992) that it was the place I would spend the rest of my career, gladly, not just because the people were amazing, but the building\u2014as ill-maintained as it had been\u2014was homey, comfortable.<\/p>\n

So I was smiling most of the night.\u00a0\u00a0After all, as I spoke with Ms. Boyer, a couple of the middle school students, and many of the teachers, I noticed the same comfort, already the same pride, rapidly the growing sense of ownership.\u00a0And, if ROMS does it right, the building will be used as much for a community space as a middle school.<\/p>\n

My own classroom space at Dondero High School has been converted to a 7th<\/sup>\u00a0grade science lab.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s\"\"
\ncompletely unrecognizable.\u00a0The solid oak trim, window casings, cabinetry, and hardwood floors I had for so many years attempted to preserve (and had been so often admonished to by the building administrators) have completely vanished.\u00a0\u00a0I wonder where it went.<\/p>\n

The Royal Oak Middle School building has a foot in each space, past and future; there was no better choice for the district to make in its restoration.\u00a0\u00a0I won\u2019t pretend I\u2019m not nostalgic: fourteen of my favorite years as a teacher were in those hallways.\u00a0\u00a0But the teachers and students there have a home with history.<\/p>\n

\"\"Can the new ROHS do the same?\u00a0\u00a0The building plainly lacks the architectural personality of the ROMS site.\u00a0\u00a0As construction continues (and continues), we need to remember that the goals of restoration of a 1950s property simply aren\u2019t the same.\u00a0\u00a0But this does not mean that Royal Oak High School need accept any compromise in attention, that it won’t be the jewel of the district which ROMS has become. Principal Greening is right to demand that our school get equal priority.<\/p>\n

The high school doesn\u2019t merely need quality infrastructure but\u00a0the feel<\/em>\u00a0of quality for its residents. It needs the feel of ownership, the feel of comfort, the space where students and teachers want to spend time, not merely flee from at 2:30.\u00a0\u00a0It needs the feel of future.<\/p>\n

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P.S.\u00a0\u00a0What specifically would I want to see happen?\u00a0\u00a0Many of these are already in the works, but pointedly few to none are part of the bond issue.\u00a0\u00a0They are up to us to create for ourselves, I fear:<\/em><\/p>\n