More than a Common Space

I romanticize one-room schoolhouses. I picture Laura Ingalls Wilder ringing the morning bell, the children rushing to the front door, eager to enter and warm themselves by the black pot belly stove, then settle into their desks, ready to greet their teacher with a lilting, "Good morning, Miss Wilder." Laura’s desk sits in the front of the room with her back to the blackboard. Students face her in rows of desks separated by an aisle, boys on one side, girls on the other. The stove occupies the place of honor in the center of the room, inviting the children to gather beside it on winter mornings. Laura juggles the solo teaching duties, dividing her time between the younger students’ ABC and counting lessons and the older ones’ social studies and recitations. Brothers, sisters, neighbors and friends walk miles to join their teacher. . .  in their common space.

As I shared in my last blog entry (August archives), I've been substitute teaching at the Anglo American School of Moscow’s St. Petersburg branch for the last week. There’s no Miss Wilder at the front gate; however, if Mr. Gleason, the principal, were to dress up in bonnet and prairie attire, he might pass for a fair imitation, as he shakes each student’s hand and says “Great to see you!” each morning. 

The three-story, multi-room, multi-teacher school bears no outward resemblance to the 19^th century American frontier version.  As far as schools go, though, AASSP is on the smaller side, with 145 students in grades k-12.  And it is bursting at its concrete seams. Watching the students, teachers and staff enter in the morning, I can almost see the walls puffing out like a marshmallow, expanding to let the last one in.  Rooms, which should be one, are divided into two. The principal's office doubles as a classroom.  Areas the size of walk-in closets have been transformed into the library, foreign language and ESL (English as a Second Language) domains.  

To get from point A to point B in almost any spot in the building requires going through points C, D and sometimes E.  Navigating from the office to the 5^th grade classroom, for example, a traveler must enter and exit the middle/high school social studies classroom, climb a flight of steps, and walk across the 4^th grade room, before opening the door to his destination. Students and teachers, accustomed to the routine, shuttle seamlessly from place to place, greeting each other and offering an “excuse me,” for the occasional bump or traffic jam on the steps. Brothers and sisters speak, friends socialize, adults and students mingle . . .  in their common space.   

Therein lies the connection between the Little School on Penkovaya Street in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Little House on the Prairie school in rural America.  Whether the inhabitants occupy one large room or several smaller ones under the same roof, they are a community.  Whether it’s one teacher or more, they care, interact personally, and are dedicated to their students’ learning.  Whether it’s 15 students or 145, they work and grow in a safe, nurturing environment.

Miss Wilder may ring the bell to signal the start of the day in one school, and Mr. Gleason may shake students’ hands in the other, but in both, children and adults enter a building in which they feel like a family.