Nice Shot

The atrium at the end of the upstairs hallway at our school was one of the architectural features that was added to make us more "modern." This was back around the turn of the century when we had been on the slate for "modernization" as a site for several years already. We didn't get flat screen displays for the teachers to reference or modular desks for the students that could incorporate various learning abilities. We got white boards instead of chalk boards. We got new tile and some nice wooden paneling. We got a fresh coat of paint. And we got that atrium.
It is the thing that keeps our two-story instructional building from appearing strictly institutional. It lets in the light. It looks modern, in a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of way. That's why the most recent flurry of vandalism was so troubling to me. Over the weekend, someone had taken a pellet gun and plinked a divot in each of the dozen-plus windows in our architectural feature. A few of them sprouted into actual cracks and were summarily replaced. The rest of them, however, were left. High impact glass like the ones in those windows is very expensive, and until they are actually letting in the breeze, they sit there as a reminder of someone's careful aim and callous disregard for education.
I felt a tiny bit of admiration for the vandal. The ones who drop by with spray paint have their work covered up almost immediately with the vague earth tones utilized across the district. The idjit who used our atrium for target practice can drop by just about any evening and examine his or her handiwork, since the pock-marked panes will remain until they crack all the way through. That may happen as soon as next weekend, when the school sits vacant long enough to have the job finished. I worry about the eventual replacement of these windows with plywood, or worse, covered by wire mesh to remind us of our predicament. We are public education without private security. If someone wants to come by and smash a few windows over the weekend, they'll probably get away with it. For now there is an odd refraction to the light that comes through the lightly damaged modernization.