The schools are closed again today because it was cold this morning. Not fifty below zero. Not thirty below. Not twenty below with gusts of wind at twenty miles an hour. It was five below for a few minutes around four a.m. By eight a.m. it was maybe three below. No wind. No snow coming down. Just a bit cold. Schools? Closed. Local TV was ranting about the wind chills, non existent as they were, and how bitter it was outside. So. Schools hold classes I N S I D E.
Were the area's school furnaces all broken? Of course not. Were all the area's water pipes broken or frozen? No way. Do kids have to walk for miles to get to school? Hell no. Buses stop at every driveway for God's sake. This is at least the second and perhaps the third day in January the schools have been closed because it's cold O U T S I D E.
My roots are in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It's on the border of Canada in Michigan's upper peninsula. The weather there over the past week was like this:
|
Hi
|
Low
|
Mean
|
|
|
01/20/14
|
5
|
-8
|
-1
|
|
21-Jan-14
|
0
|
-18
|
-9
|
|
22-Jan-14
|
5
|
-5
|
0
|
|
23-Jan-14
|
5
|
-13
|
-4
|
|
24-Jan-14
|
17
|
-13
|
2
|
|
25-Jan-14
|
19
|
-4
|
8
|
|
26-Jan-14
|
5
|
-14
|
-4
|
|
27-Jan-14
|
4
|
-11
|
-3
|
|
28-Jan-14
|
1
|
-11
|
-6
|
Were schools closed there? Heck no. If you ride a bus to a Soo school, then you get out of bed, put on your boots, hat, gloves and jacket and go to your bus stop. You huddle like penguins with your bus mates, shifting the windward person every once in while, but all generally standing in a little group until the bus arrives. From a distance it probably looks a lot like a flock of mismatched penguins.
If you are an adult living in the Soo, and you drive, then you get out of bed, put on your boots, hat, gloves and jacket, and then go outside to start your vehicle to let it warm while you take a shower and have some coffee. Then you go about your day. Cold is not a detriment to a clothed and dry human being.
Nothing stops in the Soo or really anywhere else because it's cold. This Ohio and Kentucky bred willingness to do nothing because it's uncomfortable or anything other than sunny, warm and clear outside breaks my heart. Kids aren't going to freeze walking from their bus to the school. Our smog filled summer days are far more dangerous to all people than a little cold is to our children.
My children and most others in this area either get dropped at the door of their school or are walking less than a mile. Even if a kid was bare footed and jacketless running through the snow and cold, they would be able to get from car or bus to school without injury. They may even experience exhilaration and joy at overcoming what the school system says is a "calamity."
This forced societal softening of fortitude, this new rule of comfort at all costs, is ruining our children and their parents. This year school is closed because it's just a few degrees below zero. Next year is it closed because it's below ten degrees? Or because it's raining?
Our school officials are forcing students and families to take an unacceptable path to weakness and fear. A path that only is open when there is no risk or discomfort or hint of effort. Kids want the risk. They like the challenge. It's time to reflect on the error of this new trend, and return to some grit, some self sufficiency and some effort. No more calamity days because it's cold. If the furnace is working, then to school they go.
