The Loneliness of Empty Hallways

A week ago I flew back from Vermont where I spent a couple of weeks hanging out with my partner and our hyperkinetic two-year-old, who believes that by wrapping a towel around her shoulders she can be Superman, who loves anchovies and capers, who dances madly to Bob Marley, and who is exceedingly proud of her bathroom habits.

It was a delightful couple of weeks spent hosting family and friends, mowing my lawn, stacking wood, swimming in the pond, picking blackberries, and eating cob after cob of sugar and gold corn (in this summer of extreme rain, the venerable adage that corn should be "knee high by the 4th of July" never came to fruition).

When I walked back into school early Monday, it was dark and empty. Our staff had been hard at work stripping floors and shampooing rugs, and there were chairs stacked akimbo in the halls.

I poked my head into some classrooms, and teachers had been busy rearranging; their walls were barren of student art, and there were boxes of supplies piled mysteriously in the corners.

The Photo lab was dismantled, the kiln had not yet been vented, and there were computers pyramided in the cafeteria.

But most disturbing of all was the pall of silence.

Perhaps it was the jet lag, but one of the first thoughts that popped into my head as I wandered through the deserted building was a paraphrase of the classic Gloria Steinem quote: a school without students is like a fish without a bicycle.

I am proud of our physical plant - we are blessed with an extraordinary building - but without students our school is just an empty shell, just another building.

Schools need talking in the cafeteria, running in the halls, shrieks from the playground, and discussions leaking from classrooms. Schools need dodge ball in the gym, printers churning out essays, and guitars interrupting math class.

Schools need students in order to be animate. The best education takes place in an educational environment that is creative, creative environments are always slightly chaotic, and students are great at creating slightly chaotic, animated, vital environments.

Luckily, in just about a week, the Lake Tahoe School 2006-07 academic year will commence, and this wonderful building will once again be animate: the halls will be humming, the Spanish room will be babbling, the art room will be creating, the computer room will be typing, the music room will be singing, the lights in the robotics lab will be left on, and the Lost and Found boxes will be overflowing.

School will be back in session, students will be back at school, and all will be vital once again.

--Steve McKibben
8/13/06