First Snow Day of the Year

 Today was the first snow day of the year for Cameron.  He could have had one last week when Wawasee cancelled and Bethany only delayed, but I went ahead and took him to school.  Doug and I decided earlier in the year that it was best for him to go whenever possible since he had already spent enough time at home this school year and last.  Cameron has never really enjoyed e-learning and today wasn't much different.  Sitting in his room following along with classes on Zoom had lost its thrill long ago and seemed even more tedious today.  We completely understood his feelings.  In the past ten months he's spent almost as much time in online school as he has in person.

Today's cancellation made me think a lot about snow days of the past.  Before each student had a device to work on outside of the classroom, snow days meant school was completely cancelled for the day.  I remembered playing games with the Heinisch children and watching some of our favorite movies together including "Snow Day."  If it was warm enough everyone went outside for part of the afternoon to build snowmen or at least shovel the drive.  If the roads were relatively clear we even made a fast food run for lunch.

Computers changed snow days as they became e-learning days.  Cameron had become accustomed to those as Bethany had been using them on treacherous weather driving days since he started as a student in 5th grade.  He would still have school work, but it would be less intense and less time consuming with independent assignments for each class.  There was still time for games and some classes even assigned snow activities as a requirement for the day.  Virtual learning changed snow days once again as Bethany students were required to log in for each class period for a Zoom meeting thus taking up a full day school day.  Although we have appreciated the consistency in Cameron's education, this has meant no free time on snow days.  We miss that as does Cameron, but life lately has changed a lot of old routines.  Instead of complaining about it, we have adjusted as well as could be expected knowing that one day Cameron will be able to tell his own children "back in my day we didn't even get a break from school during a global pandemic."