|
|
|
Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
This afternoon, I carried a few bags of newspapers to the recycling bins outside Enon Elementary School. As is my custom, I drove around the circle at the school’s front entrance before pulling up beside the dumpster.
This ritual invariably brings back memories. When I was a kid, the circle was where the buses pulled up – at the base of the long flight of stairs leading up to the front hall.
These days, of course, we build schools without stairs. That’s good for kids with physical limitations – but there’s a cost. An important message was encoded in the architecture of a classic, early 20th century school building.
Education involves an upward climb. Learning takes effort.
I also associate Enon’s stairs with school plays, because parents and community members climbed them to reach the auditorium. I recall, in particular, my first role – in musical version of “Peter Rabbit.”
The title role was supposed to go to a third grader, and I was only in first grade. But somehow, I wound up with the part. Which required my mother to sew not one, but two rabbit costumes – one for me, the other for my little sister, who proudly wore it to opening night.
I had a decent acting career at Enon. It would be 25 years between my last play there and my next performance, in a UVA production of Much Ado About Nothing. But early experiences leave their marks. Last week, I started rehearsals for Hamlet at the Richmond Shakespeare Festival.
Easing around the circle in front of my old school, I invariably look up at the windows of the classroom facing me. That was Mr. Apesos’ room – my seventh-grade classroom. I was in that room one sunny November afternoon when Mrs. Bird, our principal, summoned our teacher to her office.
Mrs. Bird was a tower of strength, but that day, she needed Mr. Apesos’ quiet, masculine presence to help her cope with terrible news. President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.
A few minutes later, Mr. Apesos returned to share the news with us. Of all the public events of my lifetime, I’ll remember that day when other memories have faded.
There have, of course, been other such moments. I was teaching at Midlothian High School when the Challenger blew up.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was eating breakfast and watching the news.
Like most, I assumed the first tower had been struck accidentally. When the second plane went in, I knew at once – as most Americans knew – that our world had changed.
As the anniversary of that dark day rolls around, I find myself thinking of unfinished business. One day, a month or two after 9/11, I was reflecting on the police officers and firefighters who rushed into the Twin Towers when everyone else was fleeing.
Where, I wondered, do such heroes come from?
Then, suddenly, an idea popped into my mind. Not a vague notion, but an idea essentially complete – like a gift.
I saw a high school for students interested in public service as police officers, firefighters, EMTs, National Guardsmen, etc. A small, regional, highly selective school, like a governor’s school, but oriented toward students with a different set of talents – physical fitness, personal courage, a disposition toward action, an orientation toward teamwork, a calling to serve.
I persuaded two legislators – Delegate Lee Ware and State Senator John Edwards – to sponsor a bill authorizing such schools. Occasionally, I used this column to advocate the idea, which I called the Commonwealth School.
Eventually, I produced a little booklet setting forth a detailed description of a Commonwealth school. I presented it to individual members of our school board. I even wrangled a meeting with Secretary of Education Thomas Morris and State Superintendent Billy Cannady.
But today, seven years after 9/11, nothing has actually been done.
Somehow, despite a lifetime in politics and public education, I’d convinced myself that simply presenting this manifestly good idea would – by itself – produce action.
Things don’t work that way.
In a democracy, you only get action by convincing politicians and bureaucrats that the public demands action. And to generate public demand, you need a small, dedicated team willing to put in the time and effort necessary.
In the four years I’ve been writing this column, I’ve presented dozens of ideas which struck me as worthwhile. But only the Commonwealth School continues to haunt me – not because it’s my idea, but, in a sense, because it isn’t.
So, on this seventh anniversary of 9/11, I’m inviting interested readers to join me in creating a committee to make the Commonwealth School a reality.
It won’t take more than a dozen or so – and we probably won’t meet until after Election Day – but I’m looking for volunteers, right now.
Because I believe, as surely as I believe anything, that the Commonwealth School was meant to be.
If you’d like to help, I’d like to get to work.
© Copyright by Village Publishing
Top of Page Comment
on This Article
The
Village News office is located at 4607 West Hundred Road Chester
Mailing address is PO Box 2397 Chester, VA 23831
Phone: 751-0421 Fax: 751-9155
Office hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday call ahead for
other hours.
Statement
of Journalistic Ethics
|
|
|
Village News:
Read right 'round the world.
|
|
