The phone rang a little after 7:00 p.m. last night, the caller ID a very familiar one.  I picked up the phone to hear a recording that said “tomorrow will be a school closure day for LPS staff”.   There’s almost an immediate relaxing of the muscles, a feeling of impending freedom.  Does that sound a bit overdramatic?  Perhaps, but if your day was as structured as most teachers, you might understand why I and perhaps other teachers feel this way.

It’s not that I didn’t make plans to work.  There’s always work to do.  I slept in a little bit,  threw on some sweats and took time to eat breakfast instead of grabbing a donut on the way to school.   I started when I wanted to, working on a to-do list that has been accumulating for a while now.  All the peripheral things that accumulate on top of the usual lesson planning and teaching.  All the things that you try to fit in when you get home and still try to have a life with your family.

This is a career so regimented that I have to wait to use the bathroom when it’s convenient for everyone else, where I have to keep a watch on the clock every minute of the day for length of lessons and classes, meetings, lunches and duties.  And within this expanse of time, I am expected to engage and challenge children in creative, academic work.  It’s exhausting, and for someone who craves having time to themselves it can become overwhelming, except for the possibility, the carrot at the end of the stick possibility, that there may be a snow day and that breath freedom where I get to arrange the schedule the way I want, get the things done I want and use the bathroom when I want.

It’s stressful work,  mostly on my feet, only sitting for lunch and planning time and where I am constantly evaluating and tweaking.  Weekends are then crammed with all the things you don’t have time for during the week and if you’re an underachiever like myself, you have to spend some time during the weekend at school to prepare for the coming week.  It’s just the nature of the beast.  So a break, for any reason can become a mental health day and on those snow days you really can’t or shouldn’t get out makes it even better.

I understand that these days are for student safety, even the ones just to keep kids out of the cold.  Some people, the ones who are blessed with coats and heat and warm homes and cars, tend to forget that there are a lot of families struggling to have those things and if we have school, some kids are having to walk in sub-zero windchills without what is necessary to keep them safe.  It’s a lot of responsibility for the ones in charge of making those decisions and if we’re lucky they always consider the children first.  The day for us then is just a gift.

I admit that I crave snow days as much as the kids but for entirely different reasons.  It’s not that I don’t believe what I do is important or that there aren’t personal rewards for the work I do, it’s more that there sometimes needs to be a little Drang with the Sturm.  So, there’s two more days of school this week and I can do anything for two days.  Especially if there’s a break at the end.