Battle Scarred Schools
Elmwood Classroom with whiteboard material covering old blackboards
(image by Carl Petersen) DMCA
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
It had been years since my sister and I had been back to the neighborhood where we grew up, but last month we had the chance. In New York for a family reunion, we took an afternoon to roam Rockland County for a trip back in time. We already knew that our childhood home had been bulldozed long ago as had the Nanuet Mall where we had spent many weekends as teenagers, so these would be visits to addresses rather than childhood shrines. However, the schools we attended are still standing, so these held the possibility of giving us physical connections to our youth. As we pulled up to Elmwood Elementary School, eagerness quickly turned to shock. My sister turned to my mother and asked, "How could you have sent us to such a dump?"
I know that my education was better than reflected in the current state of the district's facilities. While it is often true that the past is often looked at through rose colored glasses, this was not one of those times. In our day, Dr. Lillian Glogau ruled that school with an iron fist and would never have tolerated the abandoned state of the baseball field. What happened to the school yard full of playground equipment? The domes, slides, tunnels, see-saws and even the "big cheese" have all disappeared to be replaced by a few paved handball courts and one climbing apparatus. How is that possibly enough for a school full of children eager to blow off pent up energy on a spring day? When I think of the hours I spent looking out the Article: Battle Scarred Schools | OpEdNews:
Carl Petersen