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Friday Slide Show: Miraloma School Tiled Stairs
21 August 2020
The Dragon is the mascot of Miraloma Elementary School a few blocks away. Having been born in the Year of the Dragon (by the skin of our fangs), we're partial to the mythical beasts. Our disappointment in rarely seeing one is balanced by the knowledge they will never be an endangered species.
So when we heard the school had decorated its flight of steps leading to the school yard and its playground off Bella Vista Way with a tiled dragon, we just had to hike over there to take a look.
We weren't disappointed. And since it isn't yet safe to reopen schools, we thought we'd share the experience now, just when the stairs would ordinarily be getting a real workout from sneakers of all kinds.
We spent what seemed like an entire semester walking up and down the steps taking photographs for you.
What we didn't expect from Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher, who were behind not only this tile stairway but the one on Pacheco16th Avenue Tiled Steps, was the lessons embedded in the steps.
You may, consequently, consider this slide show as something of a text book suitable for remote learning. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from these tiles.
The dragon's tail greets you from the first step off the street and leads up to its fire-breathing head pointed at a brilliant sun on the landing that branches off to the playground before continuing up a few more steps to the school yard.
The dragon's head tiles the landing's entire retaining wall, looking up at the sun (and the solar system for that science requirement). And along the way up the dragon's tail, you'll find a tiled curriculum of alphabets, words, numbers, math problems and more.
The inspirational (and amusing) quotes embedded in the tiles are from Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Michelle Obama, Cicero, Einstein, C.S. Lewis, Emerson and Mary Oliver. Some of them are no doubt familiar, but not all of them.
We spent what seemed like an entire semester walking up and down the steps taking photographs for you. And we got quite an education in the process. But it only whetted our appetite for more of the stuff. Education, that is.
And these steps seem like a great way to start a school day -- whether at the school or learning remotely at home!
