Plus ça Change

"Leadership team looked at the survey results and we decided that every student will have a binder next year," our team leader informed us at our weekly meeting today. "Dividers for all seven subjects AND a paper agenda," she continued.

Her report was met with silence; everyone present agreed that, even in this oh-so-digital age, a binder is a good organizational tool for students. The agenda? Not so much, but we can work with it. 

"They're forming a committee," she laughed, "to formalize the binder expectations. In case anyone feels strongly enough to join."

There were no takers, but the offer reminded me of something. Our school building is 50 years old. Having spent my entire career there, I am rather fond of the sprawling old brick fortress it is, but I am a minority. Many others have good reason to wish that our district will finally earmark the funds to tear the place down and start again. 

From the mice in the ceiling, to the lack of windows and ventilation, the leaks, the mold, the foundation repairs, the place is showing its age, but when I first started, it was still a sprightly structure of just 20, one of the newer buildings in the system. Ten years later, when the place turned thirty, we created a time capsule to commemorate the event. Each team was asked to choose or create an artifact that would show the world thirty years in the future what middle school was like in the early years of the new millenium.

Our sixth grade team? Put together the best binder you could ever imagine! Surely this will be a thing of the past, we thought. But twenty years later, despite iPads and smart panels and mobile phones in every pocket, here we are talking about the same things. 

And? Unless something huge changes, when they open that time capsule our artifact is going to get a great big yawn. Except, it is a really great binder-- there is that!