Local Matter

Not everybody appreciates seeing local matters discussed where others can look in.  I figure that if we don't have anything to hide, it probably doesn't matter if others look in.  My hope always is that we can learn from others' experience and they can learn from ours.

I hardly know why I'm thinking about this again, because I certainly haven't been hearing much about it from others or talking to others about it recently, but thinking about it kept me from being able to sleep today when I tried to take a nap.  I do think about the matter briefly every time I go down my daily prayer list.

I don't know that Melvin H. N. wants any pity, but I keep thinking that he should not have to give up any farm land so that a gym/community building can be constructed adjacent to the old Elreka grounds.  Trying to sort out the reasons for that feeling of mine is what occupied  my thinking today.  Here's some of what I came up with.

1.  Melvin's farming year-round just might be as important as children's playing in a luxurious building several times a day during part of the school year.  I'm using the word luxurious as the opposite of minimalist or utilitarian.

2.  Basketball and volleyball might not be the only satisfactory ways to occupy children during playtime.  Most other indoor activities would not require a high ceiling, and an existing indoor space could be used for those.  The other high schools I am familiar with do not include playtime in their day as our high school does.  How has this taken on the status of an "inalienable right?"

3.  Anyone who is older than I and who grew up here went to school without a gym during at least some of their school years.  I think those people generally turned out pretty well, even with this great deprivation in their childhood.

4.  Approximately half of the children in Pilgrim's sponsoring churches regularly and happily have school without a gym--and perhaps without any playtime scheduled during school hours.  They get some of their exercise from working at home.

5.  For 35 years, Pilgrim High School has operated without a gym (unless you call the shop a gym), and Pilgrim Grade is in their second decade of having done so.  Again, it's hard to see this as having caused anything worse than occasional inconvenience.

6.  Children would play just as happily in a utilitarian space as in a "Cadillac" of a structure.  Every single educational benefit for recreation could just as easily be met in a utilitarian space as in a more costly structure.

7.  Making a gym a dual purpose space complicates everything, if its other purpose is a community building.  The likely result is an over-equipped gym, or an under-equipped community building, and it will be expensive to build and maintain if both functions are planned for.  If we need a gym, we need a just-right gym--not an over-equipped, over-priced one.  If a gym is used as a community building, we'll be right back to where we are now--having to juggle the school space and schedule with other community events.

8.  I'm in favor of throttling back sports-madness, not encouraging it.  Exactly how having a gym would affect this equation is not easy to quantify, but I think it's safe to say that the greater the variety of playtime activities, the less likelihood there is of fixating on any one of them and becoming overly preoccupied with it.  I read through Pilgrim's purpose statement recently and saw no mention of sports anywhere that I recall.  Certainly, preparing students for playing sports professionally is not part of the goal statement.  We may just be making a much bigger deal of providing for playing basketball and volleyball than is warranted.

9.    The old Elreka property has enough parking space now for school use, but not enough for parking big crowds--unless people do as they used to do, park along both sides of the road for special events.  As it is now, the size of the property is just-right for a school--and not much more.

10.  I'm in favor of minimizing expenses.

Here are some of the alternatives I see that would let Melvin keep his land.

1.  Use the existing "old gym" for a play space and provide for volleyball and basketball outside.

2.  Find space within the existing school property footprint for a minimalist gym--which I believe would meet the "just-right" criterion.  I don't understand what keeps us from at least investigating such an option.  Look here for several pictures and posts in a row that give more details, including the words of a very satisfied Christian school principal who has a number of years of experience with such a minimalist structure.*

3.  If a community building must be built, put it across the road (where we also own land) and build it right for that purpose  at a later time, and let approval and funds for it be established on its own merits rather than having it piggyback on school needs and perhaps even co-opt them.

4.  In general, solidly orient our practices according to Pilgrim priorities. 

If any alternatives to a "Cadillac" and purchasing land from Melvin are being considered, I have not heard about them.  I would be reassured if I did.

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*One factor that is different in their Oregon climate is that they have lots of cool, rainy weather during the school year, and we have more dry, sunny weather--some of it warm and some of it quite cold.  I'm not sure how much solar heat gain is possible in this structure because I don't know how translucent the covering is.  Paul S. did say they don't need lights during the day so I presume that there is light penetration and there would also be solar heating occurring--much more of that here than in Oregon because we have more sunshine.    With a concrete floor as a heat sink--absorbing heat during the day and releasing it at night, the temperature could likely stay fairly moderate on most days during the school year.  If it were too warm to play in the gym, playing outside instead would likely work well on those days.  Putting heat in the floor would be another option, but would also add to the expense.