Jan 25 2009
Lifelong Learners…when, where, and how? Part 1
The only buildings built for ‘public’ activities that are more underused than schools are churches. In most communities many of these buildings could be open seven days a week if the ‘owners’ would take off the blinders of how these places have been traditionally used and let their vision expand.
It drove me up a tree to hear administrators say that we may have to cut back to a four day school week when the price of fuel was skyrocketing. In the face of that pain, throughout most of the communities in our country, the response should have been that we need to work our way to having our schools open seven days a week, not closing them an extra day. And, if needs be, convert some of our space to emergency shelters for folks who cannot keep their homes heated and buy and cook their food.
It did my heart good to see the worship services in our cafeteria when one of our local churches was damaged in a flood.
I am in school often on the weekends and here during the week often after most of my colleagues and students have left for the day. The feeling is the identical to the feeling I had in the churches I served in when I was a parish clergyman. I felt then and feel now as though we are squandering a tremendous resource: that we are not being good stewards of what we have been given to manage.
Our school now has Saturday Academy, Distance Learning, and expanded ’school day’ through the funding that comes through the 21st Century Grant. This is just the beginning. We should ultimately be doing so much more.
This is the beginning of our discussion of being lifelong learners.
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You make excellent points, Skip. In addition to the super structure that most schools are, there is public money funding the heating, cooling, and security. From a technology perspective, there is underused computers and internet connectivity that’s just sitting there. School districts pay for the connectivity whether it’s used or not.
In our county, the public school shared the secondary school facility while the Catholic school was being built. It meant that the building was used twice as much as it had been. Made a great deal of sense until the Catholic school opened. Now, both of them are back to traditional timetables.
Why can’t public libraries, places of worship, fitness centres, and more take advantage of this?
Doug-
Thanks for your feedback and analysis.
-Skip
Excellent suggestions, Skip. So many resources are put into schools and their buildings that it seems a shame to use them for only one thing. Your suggestions would also help to build community.
Skip, it may not have gone like you thought it was, but it did go somewhere. We have to continue to be flexible in our vision, be innovative, and be aggressive in our attempts to solve problems because the problems are going to get harder, not easier, and require more thinking than ever before. Thanks for your thoughts.
Under my former principal, the school was open to the community on weekends and he encouraged it. He saw it as a way to have security at our school (less vandalism) and the community also has something vested in the school so they will take care of it and be willing to do things to improve it. When he left, the administrative attitude made a complete turn around. The community was not welcome during out of school hours as well as during school hours. I heard a lot of talk in the community and was saddened to hear such a disconnect between the school and the community. But I am just one person and my opinion was not welcomed either.