Goodbye To Buiding 20

Tree I painted on the wall named Leafy, an easier version of Leaf Lock one of the two Ent tree beings from Tolkien. The hands were the beginnings of a Rainbow of Hands using hands from each class.

During the Second World War, a temporary building was constructed on the MIT Campus that became famous for being a center of innovation due to its malleable nature. In the fifty years  of its existence, residents could knock out walls and modify the building at will, leading to innovative discoveries that changed the world. Due to its ad hoc nature, it also led to juxtapositions of radically different disciplines that led to cross-fertilization as it became the site where different departments seeking room found spaces of last resort.

My old "mod" library, essentially an old trailer house hooked to the school probably since the 1980s, has been my Building 20. The fact that almost all the elementary schools in the center of North Dakota's fracking bacchanal depend on a Frankensteinian assemblage of old trailers melded onto aged schools is symbolic of where the state of North Dakota's priorities lie. Usually, it is the job of the local school district to raise funds, but the fact that the state relies on a literal umbilical of oil centered on Williston to survive makes me believe they should be supporting the children here more than they do. Two new elementary schools are on the ballot coming up, but are likely to fail. The citizens of Williston may rightly feel they shouldn't be footing the whole bill for something that is benefiting the whole state like a colonial province farmed for resources and left behind. Where does all the money made around here really go and shouldn't more of it stay here? As I move to a different school and library, I will miss my own Building 20.

Despite the drawbacks, I have learned to love this old building like the residents of Building 20 loved theirs for freedom. It has allowed me to paint giant anthropomorphic trees on the wall and have children put their tempera paint handprints there. It has allowed me to drill shelf brackets into the wall and glue used markers to the wall. It has allowed me to engage in messy building activities that might be frowned upon in a newer place. The fact that my library, like MIT's storied Building 20, is slated to be bulldozed into a pile for the dumpster any time makes it valuable as a learning space.

The second tree I painted named after Tree Beard of Lord of the Rings fame with shelves drilled into the wall on its limbs.