Tag: snow day

Snow day? #SOLC26 11/31

By the time you read this, I will already know my fate.

I might be at home, curled up in a blanket, marking essays or reading a book.

I might be driving on an icy road, heading to a school likely to be all but empty – buses cancelled; schools open.

And, though this is very unlikely, I might be preparing to teach a full class of students.

Weather forecast: up to 20mm of ice accumulation (25 mm = 1 in) from freezing rain. 
Warning level: orange

(No one really seems to know what an orange warning is – but it’s more dire than yellow and less dire than red, so that’s something.)

When I was a student, I didn’t fully appreciate how much teachers sometimes long for snow days. Here in Ottawa, a true snow day is a rare thing indeed – we almost always stay open – which makes it even more wish-inducing. For tomorrow, I have my money on option 2: buses will be canceled, but teachers will still be required to go in. A few intrepid students will show up, but we won’t be allowed to teach anything new, so the day will be lost. Sigh. 

Still, I’m up a little later than I should be, writing.

Still, I haven’t told my children they must go to sleep.

Apparently that childhood longing for an unexpected day off never fully goes away.

Once, when I was a young teacher working with many other young teachers in Washington, DC, several inches of snow were predicted to start on a Thursday night. DC had no ability to handle snow, so if it snowed, we would have the day off. In anticipation, after work we all went to a local basement pool hall – one of our favourite hangouts. As the evening progressed, we played pool and drank beer, laughed and sent various teachers up the stairs to open the door onto the street and check for snow.

The evening crept onward, but no snow fell. We worked at a very small school; fully half of the faculty – probably more – was playing pool in that basement bar, drinking beer and waiting for the snow. By 10pm, with no snow falling, the more clever amongst us went home, hoping to sleep off whatever damage they had already done in time for school the next morning. But most of us stayed. 

11pm. More beer. No snow. A few more people left. But not many.

Then, around midnight, just when we were beginning to recognize the reality of what we had done, someone went up the stairs – ostensibly to go home – whooped loudly, turned around and raced back down to rejoin the crowd. “It’s snowing!” The bar erupted with cheers. The bartender gamely turned up the tv and we rejoiced to hear that DC schools were closed the next day.

I don’t remember what time we went home that night, but it was late, and – oh – how I remember our joy. 

A snow day. An unexpected day off. What a gift.

It could happen. And listen, I’m far too old to be out playing pool until all hours of the night, but, just in case, I might wear my pajamas inside out. And I think I’ll let my kids stay up late.

Not bad for a blizzard

As an immigrant to Canada, I may never get over the way schools here handle snow days. In South Carolina, we sometimes had “weather days” because somebody somewhere had uttered the word “snow”; everyone freaked out, panic-bought milk at the grocery store, and school was cancelled. In upstate New York, where my sisters went to high school, school was occasionally cancelled because it was too cold out for kids to be waiting for buses. In Ottawa, if there’s a LOT of snow and we’re really lucky, they might cancel school buses, but schools are pretty much always open. “There are plows,” Canadians shrug. “Leave early.” And so we do.

This morning we woke up to clear skies and reasonable (read: still very cold) temperatures. There was no reason to expect buses to be cancelled. I didn’t even check my email. Luckily, my carpool buddy texted before 7am:

Hmm. A blizzard. OK.

Email revealed a message from one of my children’s teachers: students were “encouraged” to come to his morning class, buses or no buses. I woke Mr. 15 and sent him in. Mr. 17 said he would probably go in for Calculus because “it’s not snowing yet.” Blizzard-shmizzard.

No bus days are also “no new material” days because many students can’t get to school without buses. In practice, this often means that we end up with a handful of students and not much to do, but today was different. The few grade 12 students who arrived for first period asked to read their books, and then they did exactly that – for more than an hour! Then, during Reading class, we watched CNN10 and discovered that we could stream the Olympics – luge and ski jumping soon filled the room. 

Now, at the end of the day, I am sitting in a darkened classroom with students I’ve collected from several grade 9 classrooms. Kids have pulled out food (Where do they get it all? Is this what is in their backpacks? I’ve been offered both sour gummi worms and white chocolate.) and we are watching Olympic women’s hockey – Canada vs USA – while a literal blizzard blows snow outside the classroom window. There’s a steady undercurrent of talk and giggles. Phones are out, but kids are watching, too. They’re speaking Turkish, Arabic, and English while they cheer our team on. It’s not school, exactly, but it’s not bad for a blizzard.

Not with a bang but a whimper

The last teaching days of this semester were snow days. Two of them in a row. What a way to go out.

Image result for deflated balloon

Shocking precisely no one, I like to teach right up to the last minute. I had planned one more guided academic discussion (for a mark!), an exit survey/ teacher evaluation (which I keep and use to improve my teaching every year – and also to check that I’m teaching what I think I’m teaching), and a celebration/ reflection on our learning. No, not a party (imagine my students’ disappointment), rather a moment to take stock and find ways to represent our learning and then celebrate (and yes, I sometimes bring food). I was even going to read them one more poem. (Hey, who knows when they’re going to hear another one?)

So none of that happened. On the plus side, despite the lack of busses and the general emptiness of the school, six of my students showed up for the last day, which was kind of miraculous. (Because snow days here are really “no school transportation days” so schools are open and the teachers are required to be present, but the school buses don’t run. Since I teach at a magnet school, no buses = very very few students; “snow day” more accurately captures our truth.)

I was really sad about the way the semester petered out. I don’t think I realized how much I value the final moments with my students. I love helping them take the time to pause and see what they’ve accomplished. They are often astonished. I think this class would have loved this moment; I know I would have.

Instead, they came into their exam yesterday more nervous than they needed to be and without the sense of forward progress that can propel them to even greater achievement on their final exam. We made do: I added a group discussion to start; I circulated and reminded them of their strengths; I had donuts to entice them to take a stretch break if they wanted. They did fine, but I’m still thinking about the sense of an ending and how important it is. Finally, I couldn’t stand it and positioned myself to catch them on their way out the door. I asked each student what they thought they had learned. I knew that there was a possibility that they would say “nothing”, but most were thoughtful. In turn, I shared with them something I learned or was reminded of because I taught them.

Unusually, I got three hugs as the exam finished up. I’m going to miss this group – and next week, I’ll start to fall in love with the next.

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