Who among us hasn’t hoped for a snow day, am I right?
Remote learning demanded shifts in a lot of areas. Man, did I feel for those science teachers trying to hold students’ interest without being able to lead hands on experiments…everyone had their battles to wage but that seemed like a particularly difficult subject to translate into online learning. Well, that and the arts. Creative energy can be hard enough to capture in teens, but through a computer screen? Not always an easy task.
But seriously, snow days? Those have always been golden. Unexpected vacation time where everything stops except hot chocolate and silly movies. Plus if you were lucky enough to get the call the night before then you’d be able to sleep in, too.
And then school went remote and the powers that be had to feel their way through something new. Because if everyone had learned how to learn remotely anyway well, then, there wasn’t really much point to a “snow day” because they’d proven you didn’t need to be in the building to learn so…this seemed straightforward. No snow day, remote learning day instead, ta da!
But guess what? INFRASTRUCTURE. That’s right, baby, it’s not just a political buzz word when you can’t require fully remote school because 100% of your students don’t have reliable internet access even under ideal conditions, let alone during icy snowy weather in a state ill equipped to handle it. Which means we started the school year without much hope for snow days but ended up with a few after all.
And really, who doesn’t love snow days?
Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “start with who/whom” Begin your post with either “who” or “whom” and go from there. Have fun!
Here the government is trying to avoid the required infrastructure as it’s seen as a distraction from getting children into school. Such a missed opportunity
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Isn’t it? Biden is selling his infrastructure plan now and I find it beyond bizarre that anyone would argue we aren’t sorely lacking in this area.
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Good use of the prompt. Big surprise here in Texas when the snow fell. Everyone was told to stay home. Not sure if remote learning went on as usual. Since 100% of homes in our area have internet I would say yes.
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I’m not sure where you are in Texas, John, but I can’t imagine you guys are set up for snow at all! The power outages were so widespread I assumed everything ground to a halt.
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It is the Austin area. We were in freezing temps for over five days and had rolling power outages. We are lucky to have a private power company. Those with Austin Energy (city owned) were really left without power for days or weeks. Not something one would want to repeat.
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as a teacher, I’m all in for snow days, and especially was this past year, but the only possible one, happened during our break )
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Nooo! It’s hard to argue with pretty snow but during a break? That’s just wrong. 😆
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right! a waste of a snow day! )
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We are heading towards sizzling summer.
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I think we are, too. Last week may have been our last cold snap so I’d better start wrapping my brain around non-soup dinners. 🙂
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And iced tea!
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We don’t have them.often, here, but I lament the loss of them, since the powers that be think we should all be remote ready!
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I agree we need to be remote ready but I think it’s a balance. We’re going to see a fallout from the insistence that life should have been grinding along as usual throughout the pandemic.
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Absolutely 💜
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No snow days in my neck of the woods.
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Funny that I like them for the vacation aspect, not so much because I want to go run around outside in the cold. 🙂
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