The hopes & fears of future years
The promise of a new school, along with a dire warning of what might lie ahead for mankind
It was one of those ‘feel good’ events that are always fun to cover as a reporter. Added to the mix was the significance of the occasion as well as the historical perspective it brought.
What I’m referring to was the groundbreaking that took place this past Monday on the campus of the Fowlerville Community Schools, signaling the start of construction on a new K-2 elementary building. The honor was performed by members of the school board who used shining new (keepsake) shovels to turn the ceremonial dirt.
Watching them was a handful of invited guests, mainly school and local governmental officials. Also present was staff from the construction and design teams who will be responsible for turning the $29 million project into a 72,000 square-foot building, complete with classroom, a gym, cafeteria, offices, and other amenities. It promises to be an early education facility, with a lot of trimmings.
Of course, before the dirt got turned, there were some comments—the foremost being the opening remarks by David Pruneau, who is serving as the interim school superintendent.
“You’ve all heard the phrase It takes a village,” he began. “Well, the Fowlerville community stepped forward in the middle of one of the darkest periods that we’ve had in a generation… this community stepped forward and said ‘for future generations we’re going to provide the kind of school facilities that kids deserve and that we can be proud of. And that says a lot about this community.”
The dark period he referred to was the COVID pandemic and what the community did, in stepping forward, was to approve a $41.9 million bond issue in November of 2021—with the new school building being the main component.
Pruneau pointed that there are around 3,000 schools in Michigan presently operating, with half of those buildings having been built in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“It is a rare occasion when a new school comes online in the State of Michigan,” he continued. “But I think more importantly it really says a lot about the people in the community. They decided they were going to make a difference and take care of the children in this present generation as well as the grandchildren and possibly even great grandchildren who will attend this school.
“This is the kind of commitment that a community can make that, in doing so, can make a huge difference,” he said. “This says to surrounding communities that education matters in Fowlerville.”
Putting a fine point on this sentiment were the ensuing remarks by Dana Coon, the assistant principal at Smith Elementary, the school which now houses the kindergarten-thru-second grade students. She told of how much roomier and more functional the new facility will be and how it will allow for more and even better opportunities to educate the district’s young children.
Accompanying her were two kindergartners—a boy and girl—holding up ‘Thank You’ signs they’d created. Coon noted that they, along with their fellow kindergartners, will be in second grade when the new building opens in the Fall of 2024.
Smith Elementary was built in two phases during the mid-1960s, so it’s been educating students for nearly six decades. In two years, the clientele will be slightly younger. As part of the bond issue, Smith—after remodeling—will house the district’s pre-school and Head Start classes, along with the Little Glad Center which offers day-care.
Those classes and the day care are now located in another nearby building, which goes by the name of the Munn Early Childhood Development Center. This building, which has seen a few expansions and upgrades over the years, began in the mid-1950s as the district’s new high school. It later became a middle school.
The age of the structure, particularly the original part, and the deteriorating condition of its heating, plumbing and electrical systems was the impetus for the bond issue. School officials, after commissioning an engineering study, felt it made more financial sense to build a new school than to rehabilitate Munn.
With the musical chairs that the approval of the bond issue created, Munn will be the odd building out—meaning that a small portion on the money approved by voters will go towards its demolition.
So after nearly 70 years, it’ll become a place of memories. My own recollections fall into that general category as this was the place I attended high school in the late 1960s.
Later, as we were leaving the ceremony, I shared with Mr. Pruneau that John Munn had been the superintendent during the 1950s and into the early 1960s.
“I was in 7th grade his last year here,” I noted. “He came to the district in the 1940s as a teacher-coach and my father played on some of his teams. He became the high school principal and then when H.T. Smith retired as the superintendent, he took over that position."
“So he got a building named after him and the elementary school was named after H.T. Smith,” I continued.
Realizing my listener had likely already made this connection, I quickly added, “That’s back when superintendents stayed with a district long enough to have a building named after them.”
He laughed, replying “That’s not the case anymore, is it?”
In his interim role at Fowlerville, Mr. Pruneau had taken a pause in his retirement as a longtime administrator to assist the district in the transition between the departure of our previous superintendent last fall and the process involved in finding a replacement.
A different sort of musical chairs where superintendents move from school to school, new faces move into these ranks, and older hands leave the scene.
Of course, buildings and superintendents, along with students and teachers, come and go—a steady progress that’s part and parcel to life and living.
That said, the overarching purpose remains steadfast—or should—which is to educate young children. To instruct them on becoming productive and functional adults and, by doing so, continue the relay of knowledge from one generation to the next. “Passing the torch” as President John Kennedy said back when I was an elementary student.
This relay means providing them with the tools to carry on, but also to help move the general proposition forward. To continue tilling the existing fields of knowledge, an important enough endeavor, but to also add new layers and insights.
This is what the groundbreaking signified and the historical continuum the new school will part of.
* * *
But. . . Ah, yes, always that qualifier.
On the day Fowlerville celebrated the start of a new school, the ‘fruits’ of knowledge as well as its ‘pitfalls’ were magnified. The ‘fruits’ are that we (or at least those with bright minds) have the ability through research and scientific examination to better understand the world around us and even project possible future scenarios and well as plausible solutions, while the ‘pitfalls’ are evidence that our personal and collective ‘know how’—as applied over the course of years and even centuries—has not always had a beneficial outcome and that many people, despite the facts and reasonable assumptions, choose to ignore the implications or attack the messenger.
The technology of war would be a prime example, with the threat of a nuclear winter ever hanging over us were that field of expertise given a final application.
But what happened last Monday was the release of the United Nations’ most recent report on climate change, stating that “the chance to secure a livable future for everyone on Earth is slipping away.”
Probably everyone is the important word in this statement, since not all situations and circumstances will be equal and, thus, outcomes might vary. However, in macro terms the message seems dire, particularly its warning that “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity.”
The report is the culmination of more than six years of work by thousands of climate scientists contributing to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
When the words climate change and dire message are used together, what’s being referred to is global warming and the apparent ills effects it is causing. These effects include rising oceans levels, possible changes in ocean currents that alter weather patterns, longer and more severe droughts, higher temperatures that endanger human well-being, changes to food availability, and an increase in infectious diseases.
Corresponding with this has been the accelerated pace of wild creatures becoming endangered and even extinct.
The assorted ecological systems ‘we’ humans are part of are being altered; innerwoven systems built up over the millennia that have allowed us to survive and flourish, an existing balance of nature upon which our civilized way-of-life has been fashioned, are being altered. Using a different metaphor: the web of life as we know it may be unravelling.
Reducing the man-made causes of global warming remain a primary remedy to the ill effects, although (as the report implies) reversing or even tempering some of the consequences may already be too late.
Think the loss of glaciers. Consider also the fate of polar bears because of this change. If you want something closer to home, think of those dwindling water supplies in the West. Consider also the fate of food-producing land in those areas.
The report, though, was not all ‘doom and gloom.’ If it were, ‘why’ get out of bed in the morning?
“The technology needed to adapt to climate change and keep harmful emissions at bay is available,” the scientists stated, adding that “A clear path exists to a more sustainable world and a stable climate.”
The carrot of ‘hope’ offered, along with the ‘stick’ of sacrifices and changes to the status quo that are needed.
Knowledge, used for self-centered purposes or in an ‘ignorance is bliss’ manner, may have gotten us into this fix, but knowledge, when applied in a purposeful and magnanimous manner, might get us out of the predicament.
But it takes an embrace of this purpose and approach, plus a sense of urgency.
“If we act now…” the report states.
And, as they say, “There’s the rub.”
As sure as the sun will come up, there will be those who dismiss the report and, in doing so, the knowledge behind it, implying that these so-called experts have “an agenda” or are “educated idiots.”
It might be suggested that those making the former accusation are a case of the “skillet calling the kettle black,” while with the latter comment they might be ‘projecting.’
An ironic comment (I’ve been known to make them from time to time) is this: ‘Why build schools and go to the trouble of educating children if the knowledge, which is presumably the intended outcome of this overall effort, is so easily dismissed or rejected?
* * *
Building a new school that will impact and influence children—not only in the near future, but in 20, 40, or even 70 years—is an act of confidence in the future and in each new generation’s ability to master whatever challenges and opportunities present themselves.
The report from the United Nations assesses the dangers, both near term and longer, if appropriate action is not taken. It also shows a path forward.
Hope can be a lifeline or an illusion—the by-product of knowledge and experience or of turning a blind eye. I’ll trust—and hope—that knowledge, properly used, will be our lifeline.
* * *
Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the Fowlerville News & Views—a weekly newspaper
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Once again kudos to Fowlerville for trying to make education a priority. Hate to see my old HS go though. That means two of my old schools will be gone. I guess that means I’m getting older.