Irondale High School was built in 1967, and sometime between when it was built and when I started attending, another section of classrooms was added on to the building. This section had blazing red carpet, and so naturally, we all called it the “Red Carpet” area. The Red Carpet area was home to the Language Arts classrooms, the Social Studies area, and the Media Center. The other hallmark of this section of the building was the so-called “moveable” walls. The walls were all large panels of something like fiberglass, and were designed to be moveable, so they could be reconfigured fairly easily into different classroom configurations. The result was that the rooms were always noisy, because you could always hear the classrooms next to the one you were in, and things like electrical outlets and light switches were always weird. Since these were just temporary walls, all of the electrical stuff was in the ceiling, including the light switches. All of the teachers had long poles they would use to press the light switches in the ceilings. It was bizarre.

I walked up to the Red Carpet area to see how it looked today, and I was glad to see that they finally remodelled it into something a lot more functional. First and foremost — the red carpet is gone. In place of it, they have installed institutional beige vinyl tile. It isn’t beautiful, but it is easy to maintain, and it is much less ugly than the red carpet was. Secondly, the moveable walls are all gone. They put up sheet rock walls, and along the hallways, the sheetrock is covered with nice ceramic tile, which makes the walls much more durable. I didn’t go in any of the classrooms, but I’m guessing that the ceiling light switches are now gone and that normal light switches are in their place.

As a former classroom teacher, I looked at the changes to the red carpet as good choices to make those classrooms more conducive to teaching and learning. As I walked around the new area though, I have to admit that part of me is sad to see those changes. The red carpet area of my youth, as ugly as it was, did have a lot of character. Because of that, it was a much more memorable place. Some of my favorite teachers and some of my happiest memories of my high school years happened in that part of Irondale. Now that part of the school has effectively been replaced. Oh well. I guess you can’t stop the wheels of progress.

–Pete