In the summer of 1944, a young military aviator named Bert Stiles was based in England, where he wrote his memoirs in a book titled Serenade to the Big Bird. In his book, Bert noted the deplorable physical condition of a school near his airdrome. He described it as a "dirty little schoolhouse, but no dirtier and no more inadequate than thousands of others in Canada... Schools should be the cleanest, prettiest, best-built. most carefully planned and put-together buildings of a society... Schools should be better built and kept up better than banks, because there is a whole lot more wealth in them."
Bert Stiles was 23 years old when he was killed in action in November of 1944. His book won several literary awards. It has been re-issued periodically, most recently in 1998.
The schools in British Columbia should be the safest buildings in our province. Instead, our schools are among the most dangerous places we can possibly put our children during a seismic event. Most seismologists agree that earthquakes don't kill people. Buildings that collapse during earthquakes kill people.
Madhab Mathema, the former senior Human Settlements Advisor for Human Settlements (HABITAT) may have summed the subject matter best when he stated: "when an earthquake destroys schools, it takes away the children's future - and with it, the future of the country itself."
Personally, I believe Bert Stiles was right. Schools should be the cleanest, prettiest, best-built buildings in our societies. We can afford those buildings, it's all a matter of priority. Our children, our future, depend on it.
Ron Manning
Prince George
