Tag: snow day

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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