School Experience Revision

         Lincoln School was an old, symmetric building constructed of bricks and granite that sat on a large plot of land at the bottom of a hill next to a cemetery. It’s insides were creaky and smelled vaguely of polyurethane and the echoing hallways were covered with paintings of landscapes and American flags and initials of generations of students. It was a neighborhood school of about one hundred children that all lived within a couple of miles. There was no cafeteria, no gymnasium, no library, no school buses, or nurse’s office. There was just ten, large empty classrooms with chalk boards and tiny desks.

Lincoln School had a real old feel to it, like it was forty years or so before it’s time. They used an old, heavy handbell rather than a buzzer which had already been used in schools for years. The teachers had a smoking lounge in the basement which could be seen through a window on the playground. We would often crowd around and watch them smoke and talk while they pretended not to see us. This humanized them to me and I would imagine them outside of school, at each other’s houses, playing cards around a table and gossiping with cigarettes between their fingers. There was just a certain open inappropriateness about Lincoln School that I loved. The teachers would let their students sit on their lap while they read or drive them home from school, which was never thought to be strange by anyone. It was such a small community and every teacher had some connection with their students that existed outside of the classroom, usually from having either taught or graduating with one of their parents. The teachers of Lincoln School organized a support system for its students because they were invested in more than just the student’s academic well being; they were invested in creating an overall well being for their community.

Lincoln School was clearly built to be a school, just not a very modern one. It was eventually closed due to a problem with asbestos and we were all shipped to a brand new building that was shaped like a bubble. I remember thinking that it was hideous. It was completely carpeted and got very little sunlight. It smelled like book orders and barf cleaner and it had a plastic playground that made me feel like I was at a McDonald’s Play Place. I missed our rusty, metal, crooked slide. I missed the chalkboards and the mechanical pencil sharpeners, the cloakrooms, and the shiny wood floors. I missed being able to walk around the school without a hall pass and I missed going home for lunch. There was something about Lincoln School that was so inspiring as a child. It was completely original. Lincoln school made me feel like we were the only ones in the world doing what we were doing. This new school felt conventional. The building felt manufactured, rather than built, like it had come from a Sear’s home kit and there were thousands of them scattered across the country.  

The new school was made up of the six neighborhood schools that were all forced close. The amount of students that were in my grade at the new school were equivalent to the entire student body of Lincoln. I immediately became invisible in a sea of children’s faces. We all did. Teachers no longer knew what grade I was in or even my name, nor could realistically care the way that they had at Lincoln. Student to teacher interactions started mostly focusing on academic or disciplinary issues and much of the personable dialogue had been lost. A sense of community had been somewhat lost. However, these concerns had been mostly overshadowed by the celebration of having new facilities, like a fancy auditorium and staff bathrooms. I don’t reflect on these facilities when I consider my student experience. It is the unphysical aspect of learning and growing that I really appreciate, which I feel was accomplished at best within a close, community driven environment.

People who have attended any of the neighborhood schools love talking about it. A lot of them still wear their old school T-shirts and are able to recite every word to their school song. People like to ask each other, “Which ward are you from?” And then they argue that their school was by far the best of them all. Neighborhood school alumni are proud to have been part of something so authentic, where their educational experience was not defined by “modern learning,” but was rather based on an individualized model made to fulfill the needs of their community.