Partnership Educators,
The lighthouse was doomed from the start. Fourteen miles from land and leaning into the wildest winds and made of wood. It was only a matter of time before she toppled into the English Channel. One mighty storm in 1703, Eddystone Lighthouse vanished into the darkness. Her architect, Henry Winstanley, was swept away with her.
The task of rebuilding and redesigning her fell to John Rudyard who had her beacon blazing by 1709. She was sturdier than her previous design. She was made of oak and iron and she stood for more than 47 years against the channel gales off the coast of Cornwall. It was a fire that took this one down in 1755.
English Engineer John Smeaton was then named the rebuilder of the lighthouse. The challenge of creating a tall permanent structure to withstand such intimidating conditions greatly perplexed him. While the lighthouse beacon threatened a conflagration within, the raging elements would hammer day and night over the tower walls. Many warned that it would be impossible to build an enduring edifice for such a purpose and in this harsh a place.
John Smeaton looked around for an architectural example that he might follow. For Something that was windproof, fireproof, and waterproof. Eventually, he found it. The problem was that the architect of that exemplary building was long dead. Nobody remembered the formula for what he had accomplished and its durability.
Mr. Smeaton, a Master Engineer, began to experiment with materials. He subjected them to physical abuse and flames and to salt water and fresh water. For the months that followed, his office looked very much like a mad scientist's laboratory. Then in 1759, the construction of the new and improved Eddystone Lighthouse was completed. Smeaton’s improvement did withstand the test of time for it lasted for 123 years looming above the English Channel. For all those years it withstood the wind and waves pounding upon it. Mother Nature was doing her best to destroy the lighthouse just like the last few before it.
When John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse was replaced in 1882 by a more modern structure, it was done so, for the sake of modernization only. The structure itself was still as sturdy as before.
The building that John Smeaton had looked to for inspiration. That durable and indomitable temple whose cryptic construction formulas he rediscovered and applied to Eddystone Lighthouse was the Pantheon of Rome. Built-in the second century. The secret to the Pantheon’s indestructibility was lost during the Middle Ages and may have remained lost forever if not for John Smeaton. His persistence to try and try again until he had retrieved it from obscurity was a testimony to his character for the impossible. His use of interlocking stones revolutionized the construction industry for years thereafter. But the real wonder of it all and the Eddystone miracle was the rediscovered substance that revolutionized construction everywhere from then until now. This substance was the stuff that held ancient Rome together but was forgotten. The substance was reborn as hydraulic cement from limestone. Making it possible to make a product we call concrete.
Muhammad Ali said, "Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary."
Listening to folks telling me about and then witnessing the levels of interventions at our schools is so impressive. Moving the needle on the outcome data of our student's academic achievement is hard work. I am in awe of the site-level teams who do not take no or "It's impossible" for the answer to some of their student's struggles both academically and behaviorally. Thanks for your continued work to discover or rediscover those strategies that will work with all of our kids.
Have a fantastic weekend,
Rob