Jane Cooper Elementary. Also known as Cooper "The Renaissance" School. This skeleton of a building is where my career as a teacher for Detroit Public Schools started. I was shocked to discover how Cooper had been basically robbed of it's beauty and charm in under a year.
I have so many memories of Cooper. I worked there from 1990 to 2001. I learned so much there not only how to teach in an urban setting but how to respect all those that I came in contact with. I definitely could say that the years I worked at Cooper were my childhood, if you will, as an educator. Children came to me from all sorts of backgrounds and I taught them. I taught them to love each other, to feel secure and to not be afraid when they were in the hall of Cooper. I gave them routine, stability and love. I taught them discipline minus the physical nature of it. I taught them their abcs and 123s plus a whole lot more. I loved this school but when the opportunity presented itself to me, I left never looking behind me. I knew that Cooper was much like the Titanic, a ship doomed and I had to get out of there. And I did way before it became dust in the wind.
When I came across this story from the whispers of the yesteryears, I could not believe it. I have been almost obsessed in finding my pictures. I even found my classroom. I didn't attach the really upsetting pictures-computers all on the ground of a once state-of-the-art computer lab that laid in a tangled mess, trashed beyond repair and the once beautiful and ornate auditorium where my students performed in many programs, and the thousands and thousands of dollars of materials that could have been used at another school. The pictures that I did attach are very meaningful to me. The classroom in the picture was mine. I recognized it by the calendar which was permanently attached to the wall. The other two are outside views from the front and back of Cooper. In the front view, my classroom was located next to the door on the second level to the right of the picture. The back view shows our unpaved parking lot and play area.
So goodbye Cooper. See you in a much better light in my memories!
2 comments:
Great post Carol. It is a strange feeling seeing your workplace closed forever. The building I worked at during my first 14 years at Ford is now closed as well, although it hasn't been trashed like that.
Has the building been demolished now?
Dave-the building was demolished in December. Thank goodness-what an ey-sore it must've been.
Post a Comment