It's a beautiful mornin'
So, I'm leaving my old job today. I had to rent a UHaul van to move my office, because I have a lot of textbooks, journals, articles, and other researchy stuff. I rented the van in South Philly, and everything went smoothly right up to the point where I had to get in the van and drive it through Philly's heinous inner-city morning traffic. South Philly (where I used to live) is always a traffic mess and today was even worse, because Washington Ave (the main artery) was closed for construction. So I wound up on a narrow two-way street that bypassed the Italian Market but was at a complete standstill. I had expected traffic to be bad, but not this bad, and I couldn't imagine what the holdup was.
Then I get to the corner and realize - there's a new charter school in South Philly. A big ol' brick building had a cheery sign hanging outside, "Christopher Columbus Charter School", complete with decorations of the three Spanish Armada ships. Kids were scurrying into the courtyard in their khakis and navy shirts, ready to be lined up with their class and marched inside. Everyone had tons of books, in bookbags, in messenger bags, in little wheeled duffels that the kids were hauling behind them. The traffic mess was the result of a zillion parents outside - parking, unparking, dropping off kids, lollygagging on the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, talking to other parents, talking to the teachers. It was already shaping up to be a gorgeous day outside, and the parents were in no hurry to leave.
What a glorious mess. What a wonderful reason for a traffic jam. Suddenly, I was in a great mood. Philly's schools need help, and here was a definite sign of improvement. "Christopher Columbus" as the name of the school - methinks the tots will learn some genuine history, and not any "evil white imperialist" nonsense. The parents are obviously very involved - they have to drop their kids off, because there's no school bus (not that you could get one down Christian Street at 8 am, anyway), but you could see that they were eager to talk with the teachers and with each other. It was just wonderful to see, school as it should be - as a social and learning event that energized the community. And the kids were every race, every shade, every size, all united in their little uniforms and their massive bookbags. Made me optimistic about the state of education in this country, that's for sure.