Snow Days:Safety Vs.Work

Snow Day! For the second time this month already my school is closed due to the snow. I got the much anticipated phone call around 5:30 this morning. The snow started yesterday morning and it only got uglier from there. In the afternoon temperatures were hovering around the freezing point and so the snow turned into what they call a "wintry mix." By the time evening rolled around, I could hear that it was coming down hard and it sounded like all ice.

Sure enough, when I opened the door to look outside, ice was everywhere, covering the snow that had fallen previously. During the night, as predicted, the ice once again turned to snow, adding another foot of the white stuff to what was already on the ground. Needless to say the roads were and still are treacherous. So why did school take so long to decide whether or not to close?

Life in these United States can be quite peculiar sometimes. As a teacher of students who all come from foreign countries, I have become keenly aware of many other cultures as well as our own. The crux of what makes a culture is the things that are valued in a particular society, and I have to wonder sometimes if we couldn't take heed of what is valued in other places.

Here in the good old US of A, work is way up there on the list of things we value. Many other cultures around the world do not place as much emphasis on the "work above all else" mentality that we seem to place such importance on, and I'm sure that many lives are none the happier for it. Of course, a good work ethic is indeed a worthy thing to value, but at what cost?

It seems to me that in situations like the one we're faced with today here on Long Island, it would have been a no brainer to have announced school closings yesterday when it was fairly evident that the roads would be treacherous. But there's a fine line here and it's all related to the high value we place on work. I don't blame superintendents, who are the ones to make the calls on school closings. They're under a lot of pressure to ensure that students get their proper education so that they can grow up, work hard, and be successful. I'm sorry, but when navigating the streets is clearly dangerous, shouldn't safety win over every time? Isn't it more important to be safe than to get another day in the school calendar?

I, like many others in this country, have to travel far to get to work. On normal days, my commute is just short of an hour. On minimally snowy days, that commute can easily double. On days like today, not only would that commute take much longer, but there is clear potential for accidents.

I've always said I don't want to die while doing anything related to work. I think that would be a sad way to go. I first got this notion when I used to work for a bank. I never wanted to be remembered for the headline, "banker dies in auto accident." That would be a travesty, and besides, I was always so much more than a banker. Though being remembered as the "teacher" who dies in an accident has a better connotation for me, it's still not a desirable way to go.

I'm not saying that every time it snows at all the schools should be closed, but when driving conditions are as clearly dangerous as they were this morning, there should never be any wavering, even if it's at the risk of losing a day of school. The same could be said for any other business that is faced with making such decisions. Is work so important that it has become valued over life? I don't think so.