What a shame.
Today, New York City Public Schools closed because of inclement weather. Instead of having a day off, students and teachers were required to dust off our Zoom credentials, log in, and conduct remote learning.
This is a terrible idea.
Snow days are an essential part of what it means to be a kid. There is something invaluable that comes with waking up to discover that school is canceled. While school officials fear a loss of instructional time, children gain something just as important: unmitigated joy.
For me, snow days felt like cheating the system. By staying home, I was getting away with a crime. It was thrilling. I got to reclaim my day from the regimented schedule of school and no one could say anything about it. Snow days brought about a mental release that can only emerge from having unexpected, unstructured time.
Snow days gave me power. For one day, I didn’t have to unnaturally drag my tired body to meet up with a bunch of other tired bodies to do things we were told were important. Instead, we had snowball fights and sipped hot chocolate. We watched movies and played video games. We ate cereal multiple times a day. Snow days offered us the type of autonomy we rarely experienced, except for maybe on our birthday. We were on top of the world.
That type of joy is good for the soul. Kids need it. I know I did. Taking it away and replacing it with artificial learning — like that which happens on Zoom — is futile. It’s a decision that disrespects childhood. Besides, have we not learned anything from the disaster that was the 2020-21 school year? Zoom learning was a joke then, and still is. Replacing one day of unfiltered joy with a Zoom link is a brazen attempt to hold on when the right decision is to simply let go. Days like today are misguided attempts to hurry children into adulthood, where work never stops for a snowstorm. Let our kids be kids. Give them the day off and all the merriness that it brings.
Thanks to the pandemic, I know snow days will never be the same again. We’ve officially turned a corner. This is deeply concerning given all that students are losing in the process.
I’ll be there for my students today on Zoom, but so will my contempt for this day. Part of me was going to tell my kids to forget about Zoom and to go have a true snow day. Legally, I can’t do that, but boy I wanted to.
bp
lazy 0ch0 