With the increased availability of remote learning, a childhood staple is now under threat of extinction: The snow day.
Just because we now have the technology and ability for students to learn from home doesn’t mean we should eliminate snow days. Here’s why:
Joshua Goodman, an associate professor of education and economics at Boston University’s Wheelock College, did a study in his home state of Massachusetts looking at the impact of snow days on test scores vs. individual absences. His conclusion: An individual student’s non-weather-related absences had an impact on math and English standardized test scores, but snow days (collective weather-related absences) had virtually no impact. As Goodman explains: “A more likely explanation is that schools and teachers are well prepared to deal with the coordinated disruptions caused by snow days — much more so than they are to handle the less dramatic but more frequent disruptions caused by poor student attendance.”
The shift to remote learning has taught us, particularly in West Virginia, that not all students have reliable access to broadband, which is necessary for online classes. So in fact, changing snow days to remote learning days may actually harm student performance more than a snow day would. Rather than accommodating a whole class that has missed a lesson — which puts all students and teachers on the same page for the next day of classes — educators now have to figure out how to catch up a handful of students while the rest move on.
In the midst of a pandemic, issues with remote learning are inevitable. This argument applies more to future years when in-person classes are again the norm and remote learning becomes supplemental, though the advantage to all students having the day off still applies. In a “normal” school year, snow days will likely be less harmful to student performance than an impromptu online education day.
As adults, we often become so focused on what and how students learn — test scores, report cards, meeting benchmarks — that we forget to just let kids be kids. Book learning is important, but so is experience.
We all remember the joy of snow days, but also the unintentional, practical lessons: Sleeping in and relaxing (health and wellness). Snowball fights (chemistry, physics, physical education, strategy, communication, action and consequence). Snowman building (hydrogen bonding, art, structural stability, proportions). Sledding, snowboarding or skiing (friction, inertia, velocity, navigation, exercise). Reading for pleasure (English, vocabulary, spelling, analysis, creativity). Cups of hot chocolate (ratios, thermal conductance, home economics).
And the most important lesson: Fun is a necessary part of a well-balanced life.
Education doesn’t only happen in a classroom (online or in-person). Young people learn by doing — by living — and snow days are an essential part of teaching them the things that can’t be demonstrated in school. Please, do not take away snow days. Doing so may cause more harm than you think.
