My family moved around the southern United States quite a bit during my youth.  On two different occasions we lived in San Antonio.  On Day 47 of Education Ride 365 I left Nassau Bay TX headed for this great city.  It was an unexpected destination made possible by a change in scheduling.  I welcomed it because I would have an opportunity to visit my old neighborhood for the first time since graduating from high school in 1986.  One thing that struck me during this visit were some examples of the varying relationship of perception versus reality.

My family was the first owner of the home above.  My fifth grade year was spent here, on Mule Tree Road.  I was excited to locate this home and I also thought it would be neat to drop in on the elementary school I spent my fifth grade year attending.  Granted, I didn't have an appointment at the school, but I am an alum after all! 

Sometimes perception matches reality...at other times there is quite a divergence.  My visits chronicled on this blog to various neighborhoods I lived in as a child have been, more often than not, examples of my perceptions not matching reality.  Hills I thought were so steep that we were taking our lives in our hands as we rode our radio flyer wagons down recklessly without helmets, turn out now---through grown-up eyes---to have been not so steep after all.  A lake in Florida we jumped into to retrieve our model rockets (filled with "lizardnauts" braving their lives in the name of science)...with waters we were sure were inhabited by alligators...turned out to be not nearly as big to adult eyes as the oceanic body of water we perceived it to have been as children.  The "great" distances it seemed we had to travel on our motocross bicycles to get to the neighborhood convenience store, a friend's house, or other haunts of childhood exploration now seem, to adult eyes, to not be that far at all.  I have discovered that my childhood perception on so many of these things didn't match reality!

I was reminded during the visit to my fifth grade elementary school, however, of one perception that tends to mesh with reality.  This is the perception one gets of a school's climate from the souls who work there.  The front office is where it starts.  I have found this perception to match reality so many times during my career working in the schools, and visiting other schools, that I believe it to be an accurate barometer.  Are the adults on campus friendly to visitors?  Do they smile?  Do they appear to enjoy their job...to enjoy being where they are at?  Or, do they ooze indifference and obsession with their own state of being over that of their customers?  I use the word customers here for a reason.  Healthy schools have a customer service orientation.  Each person who walks through those doors is treated as a customer, no matter the purpose of their visit.  No matter any extraneous factor that would cause them to project negativity or indifference towards visitors to their campus.  When a negative school climate exists in this form---I have found time and time again---it tends to be characteristic of most all relationships on campus, all the way down to those between the teachers and children...in more cases than not.

Upon leaving my elementary school pondering this issue of perception versus reality, good customer service versus bad vibes, I located another home my family was the first owner of, on Pebble Dew Drive.  It was the home above, the one I lived in when I graduated from high school.  The single home I spent the most years in as a child.  I knocked on the door and met the current owner.  He was a very nice fellow and was holding a yorkie that looked much like my first family yorkie, Sarge, who we welcomed into the family when we lived in that home!  Just like the other homes I've lived in and visited during this journey, I noticed elements of the yard's landscape that I slaved away helping to create as a boy.  I went around the corner and got reacquainted with the parents of my first true love...probably one of the truest loves I've ever had.  They live directly behind this high school home, a convenience I enjoyed throughout my tenth grade year!

Yet again, however, I was reminded of the disconnect between perception and reality of the world as experienced by a child.  My fifth grade home was so much closer to this home than I perceived it to be back then.  So too was the building that housed "That'za Pizza" where I worked briefly for a friend of my step-father who was fired in the PATCO air traffic controller strike in 1981.  Blossum T. Athletic Center, the huge complex all NWISD schools used for many sporting events in the eighties---and the place where my association with the San Antonio Spurs was hatched (I took pictures for them in the eighties)---now seems right down the street from my home...whereas during high school I perceived it to be miles away.  Perception does not always match reality.

My second school visit of Day 47 was to Douglas MacArthur High School, the huge high school I attended as a youth.  My graduating class was over 900.  We had about 3200 students at Mac in 1986.  The school was then laid out like a college campus, with separate buildings for the various subjects.  The Math Wing (building) no longer exists...it is a parking lot...nor the English and other wings.  The school is now all one huge, almost completely rebuilt, complex.  One of the only remaining vestiges of the Mac I knew is the huge arch, with the frieze pictured below, that was once the entrance to the auditorium but now greets visitors as they enter the building proper. 


This Douglas MacArthur frieze espouses "Duty, Honor, Country" to all who enter.  It represents to those who walk under it the values this campus wishes to project---> a perception of the school that hopefully is the reality of those who inhabit it.  In like fashion, school employees---especially those who greet the customers walking through their doors...no matter the purpose of the visit---should project a friendliness and overall customer service orientation that seems to be a hallmark of school's with a healthy school climate.  If you as an employee suggest your school is not a warm, welcoming place, reality tends to be that most people who enter (including students...the most important customers of all) will feel the exact same way! 

Riding Stats: Day 46---244.3 miles traveled, 3 hours and 42 minutes of moving time, 3 hours and 52 minutes of stopped time, 66 miles per hour average moving time, and 32.3 miles per hour overall average.  Day 47---59.54 miles traveled, 1 hours and 38 minutes of moving time, 3 hours and 31 minutes of stopped time, 36.4 miles per hour average moving time, 11.5 miles per hour overall average, and a max speed of 78.6 miles per hour.