Requiem for a Snow Day

Jill Wellington via Pixabay

Today looked like a snow day, but it was actually the first day of classes. This morning, snow was both on the ground and in the forecast, but I have Zoom on my laptop, so the show must go on.

Over the weekend, I was FaceTiming with a friend who has college-aged kids. She asked me if I thought snow days would become a thing of the past now that "virtual" has become a buzzword in education. I immediately responded that yes, I believe they will.

The news crawl at the bottom of my television screen bears witness to this. While private and parochial schools are closing, most public school districts are declaring tomorrow (another snowy day) a "virtual learning day." (Not judging here. Just making an observation. You couldn't pay me enough to be the person who decides whether a district closes or stays open).

I'm not upset about teaching via Zoom today -- another choice would have been anticlimactic, to say the least. Besides, I'd already decided to go virtual for the first day so I could see everyone in the same place, rather than starting a new semester with half of my students in front of me and the other half represented on a screen. And teaching college students on a snowy day is quite a bit different from teaching kindergarteners. 

But I’d like to hold out hope that on another day, maybe in the middle of the week that's starting to feel too long already, that those first few flakes would mark the beginning of a day where all we’d have to do is make a cup of cocoa, sit by the window, and watch the snow fall.

Snow days are a weird sort of present. Everything feels a bit off-kilter, as though we don't quite know what to do with the gift of free time they offer. Perhaps that's because snow days are also both a limited-access gift, and a limited-time offer. We can't necessarily do the things we'd do on a day off in, say, April, and we know from the outset that time is ticking. Our previously booked but now unspoken-for time has an expiration date that typically arrives all too soon.

And therein lies the promise of a snow day.

I'm still enough of a little kid that I see virtual learning as an invader, not a hero. I'm long past the age where I don my boots and snowsuit and look for a great sledding hill, but I can still find plenty to occupy me when the white stuff piles up outside. And, if I so desire, not one bit of my entertainment requires a screen or internet access. Replacing snow days -- for children or adults -- with more time in front of a screen just makes me sad.

There's more than one way to learn and, from where I sit, forcing instruction on a screen when there are cookies to bake, puzzles to do and sledding to be had just seems like the wrong kind of lesson. While I recognize that it's more complicated than that, for me, snow days remain tinged with a kind of aura that pushes practicality aside. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm overdue for some quality time watching the snow fall.