Great expectations

It’s a wonderful thing when a piece of architecture does the job its builders intended. And I don’t mean just keeping the rain off our heads.

I am in Washington, D.C. today – home to a lot of spectacular architecture – to attend an event at the Library of Congress. It’s a “hall rental,” if you will – the building is just the stage. But, oh, how well it works in that regard. The Great Hall is designed to celebrate and elevate the written word, noble ideas, and the men and women responsible for them through the centuries. It is a breathtaking space, for its scale and craft as well as for the message.

That tonight’s event is a confluence of commerce and high ideals is notable, perhaps, but in the end, the high ideals win out. Cable in the Classroom, the education foundation of the NCTA, is hosting its annual Cable’s Leaders in Learning Awards in the Great Hall to celebrate the innovative work of a dozen educators from around the U.S. Lots of ed-speak will be spoken, and a fair bit of cable business will be done too, among the invited guests – educators and education proponents, and lots of “industry” types, which in D.C. means cable owners and operators and the senators, congressmen, committee staffers, and aides who matter to them. Celebrating the good work of teachers is a “win” for educrats, and celebrating cable’s role in supporting and promoting those teachers is a “win win” for cable, especially in “today’s competitive climate” (i.e., not everyone likes cable – just ask FCC chair Kevin Martin … better yet, don’t).

Staged in the Library of Congress, this evening’s event will send a potent message: education ranks right up there among our nation’s highest aspirations. It is not a bad thing that there’s a business angle to the proceedings, don’t get me wrong, because without the support of the cable industry's system operators and programming networks, the teachers who are the stars of the event tonight might not be able to shine, or shine as brightly. It’s just good to remind oneself, while being overwhelmed by the awesomeness of tonight’s event and setting, that in order to achieve lofty goals – whether educational or architectural – somebody’s got to foot the bill. Cable deserves credit for understanding that and making the most of it.