Alumni of a decrepit building that served as a schoolhouse in Langley for more years than it should have been are breathing sighs of relief.
Their relief is not because the rotting edifice is being torn down to make way for a better school designed to meet the specific needs of today’s students.
No, they’re relieved because the rickety old structure is NOT being torn down.
Indeed, last week’s Langley Advance story notes that “the community balked” when it was pointed out that the old hulk was long past its best-before date, and it was time for a new Langley Secondary School to replace – as it had replaced its predecessor in 1947.
I don’t get it.
They are no longer students at the school. They have no personal stake, unless they have children or grandchildren who will be attending classes there – and then, you’d think, they’d want it fixed up nice, to give their kids the best educational experience possible.
Maybe I don’t understand because I never much liked school as a child.
I liked learning.
I liked fellow students who liked learning.
I liked learning from teachers who liked to teach.
I remember those students, and I especially remember those teachers. They are my school memories… and if I ever were to wax nostalgic about my school experience, it would be they that would populate my thoughts.
But I never cared much for the school buildings themselves. Why would I?
The books inside them? Yes! The posters on the walls? Sure!
But the buildings? They’re just containers for the stuff that’s worth saving.
The school that replaced my first school when it was itself torn down was torn down and replaced decades ago – and I only happened across that by accident nearly a decade after it happened.
The destruction of an old building that has outlived its usefulness is the natural course. If it has any of the feelings of sentient creatures, it may well be wishing for its chance to move on… to die.
Forcing children in a new world to learn in your dusty old lodgings might feed some misguided sense of nostalgia.
But it’s selfish.
I sure hope that the seismic upgrades at LSS are sufficient to keep children safe in a building that probably just wants to fall down.