Editor’s note: This column was originally published on XtraXtra. It is being reposted on My Buckhannon ahead of Thursday’s public hearings on the consolidation of Rock Cave Elementary into French Creek Elementary.

A column by Brian Bergstrom
Founder, My Buckhannon

At the last Upshur County Board of Education meeting, a first-grade teacher told a story about a school.

Pam Hissam — who’s worked in the school system for 35 years — didn’t talk about impact statements, studies or statistics. She talked about her life — about her mother, her father, and the power of a single kindergarten classroom.

And as I listened, I thought about what makes us human. We’re not the fastest or the strongest or the largest animals on Earth. We don’t have big claws or thick hides or deadly poison.

What we have is our mind.

The ability to plan for a tomorrow that hasn’t come yet. To imagine a future that doesn’t exist. To build, to teach, to learn, to wonder. To self-reflect.

That’s what makes us different from every other creature on this planet. And all of that depends on education.

Pam’s mother was the youngest of 12 children. She was just 17 when Pam was born and dropped out of high school. But she wanted something different for her daughter.

“My mom wanted my life to be different,” Pam said.

When Pam was five, Rock Cave Elementary School opened its kindergarten program. Her father bought a used car and helped her mom get her driver’s license so she could take Pam to school while he worked.

It changed Pam’s life.

“From the moment I walked into Rock Cave Elementary, I loved school,” she said. “I cried if I had to stay home. I received an amazing education, and students here are still receiving an amazing education.”

Later, in fourth grade, a teacher named Mr. Stone asked Pam that familiar question: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

She told him she didn’t know.

“Well, Pam,” he said, “You’re smart. You can be anything that you want to be.”

Pam saw the power of those words — that education is what gives us the freedom to choose our own future.

Listening to her story, I realized that, as a society, we’ve forgotten what makes education such a gift.

That five-year-old girl walking into Rock Cave for the first time felt something magical — joy, wonder, possibility. But somewhere along the way, we’ve lost that. We’ve become cynical, divided, beaten down. Education has been under attack for decades, and we’re now seeing that in how we talk about schools, about teachers, about learning itself.

Pam’s story is a reminder of what education can be when it’s done right. It’s a reminder that schools aren’t just buildings. They’re where futures begin.

Education shapes who we are — as individuals and as a society.

If we can bring back even a little of that joy — that sense of wonder, that appreciation of learning — that five-year-old Pam felt walking into Rock Cave Elementary for the first time, we’ll find our way.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s where we start: by believing in learning again.