I love the Benylin commercials that are currently on TV. They feature a man or woman, miserably sick with a cold, heroically trying to get out the door to work, and failing completely. The announcer urges them to “take a Benylin day- the world can live without you for one day”.

Those of us living in cold northern climates should take our cue from this commercial and ‘take a snow day.’ Where I live in Canada it is currently minus 46 with the windchill, with deep drifting snow and absolutely treacherous driving conditions. It’s completely insane to step out your door in these conditions unless you absolutely must. And yet, we dutifully pile on winter clothing, scrape the snow off our vehicles and navigate sheets of ice and car crunching snow packs on the roads, valiantly fulfilling our duty to our employers. Is it really worth risking life and limb to go to work?

Would my student’s young minds be irrevocably affected by a few less days of my instruction, just until this cold snap ends? In the grand scheme of things would their overall education really suffer that much if we closed the schools for a few days, and allowed students, and teachers, to wait out the cold in the warmth of their homes?

Let’s all grab a mug of hot cocoa, a good book or knitting project, snuggle up to our home’s heat source, and take a snow day- the world can live without us for one day!

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