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I love that. Welcome, everybody. Yeah, it's home room way to start your
week. Busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking
education. People are like, Oh man, Monday busted pencils is in school. It's
so cold and snowy in the weather's horrible. And there's ice. Man, how is it
that they are able to to do what they do? It's always supposed to have snow days
Johnny. Don't you remember snow days growing up, man, where you were like, like
I was watching this scroll on the local news of, you know, school district
X closed school district X and I was like, Oh, still badly. Two hour delay.
What? Well, Tim, when I was a kid, it snowed several feet of snow every day.
And we walked to school uphill both ways.
Barefoot, you know, barefoot in the snow winters were much more wintery.
No, Tim, I do remember waiting for for snow days. And I think kids still do
this, although, you know, it's waiting for texts and getting alert systems
that, you know, don't necessarily involve, although I'll say, you know, I'm an
old head. I still put on the local news. I, I, I like my local news, wherever I
live, whether, you know, I agree with it all the time or not, you know, is, isn't
what determines whether or not I put it on, but I especially put it on when
there's inclement weather, because I'm nostalgic for, you know, see in the
scroll. It still does exist, although it's not a scroll. It's usually like a
pretty nice, like fancy or sidebar of the list of schools that have closed.
But Tim, you know, I noticed that sometimes snow days don't always end up
being snow days or, you know, like low temp days as much of our country
experienced unusually low temperatures and, and had school closures.
You know, we talked about this back during COVID and then especially when we
came back to the classroom after COVID, one of the things we joked, but not so
jokingly talked through is now that we do all this remote learning stuff and
we utilize Zoom or Skype or even have, you know, like closed systems within
our district for doing some video conferencing and, and, and some schools are
entirely online now. You know, Tim, we talked about, does this mean that snow
days have gone the way of the dodo bird? And we, we now no longer have a need
for snow days. And some, some super tenants came out and said, no, no, you still
need snow days. It's part of being a kid. It's part of being a teacher. You
know, we can't just always have, you know, class on Zoom if we can't get to
school. And so I'm a big fan of that, but Tim, yeah, come on, Jake, Eric, Johnny,
Jacob, Jacob's got some information.
Jacob, last week, last week, our guy, our guy, we're all three pretty big fans of
I think here. I call them Z pack, you know, like that medicine you get when
you're about to get the flu and they give you, you know, a Z pack so that you
can, like knock out the flu and reboot your immune system. Well, Z pack, you
know, the mayor over in New York City, who's, you know, fixing up the city. Boy,
I'll tell you what side effect of Z pack, not a fan, but Jacob, share with our
listeners what, you know, Zoran did in New York City.
So I like Zoran. I think he's very high energy. I'm not convinced that it's
all going to work out yet. We shall see, but I'm glad he's getting a chance.
The thing that the children of New York City are not happy to see given a
chance, though, is that Zoran announced that they would not have snow days in
New York City. Instead, they would have online remote learning. If the weather
gotten the way of kids coming into school, much to the sadness and general
despair of children everywhere.
Man, you imagine if you're like a, a sled manufacturer, you're like, hold on
their Z pack, you know, our best sled sales increase every time there's a school
closure. How could you do that?
Zoran has to watch out for big sled is what I'm getting to. Yeah, watch out big
sled, you know, whether it's at the bargain, whether it's, you know, the,
the saucer cap that you like to do, or me, you know, the old fashioned two rails
and a steering, you know, adjustment right there, the great classic sled.
I, I got to say, just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
And I'm talking about remote learning on this. Okay, great. We can.
Um, but why, why I can tell you why, it's not just, it's not just Zor. Okay, Jacob,
you tell me I'll tell you why according to Zoran. This is his rationale for it.
He says, however, New York City also operates in accordance with state law,
where we have to have 180 days of instruction and giving the, given the additions
of holidays over the past few administrations, it reduces the flexibility
that we can have for an old fashioned snow day. So Zoran says he's got no choice.
He has these requirements. Does that change who we assign blame to in this situation?
Tim or what? No, because actually the 180 days, which is going to be a pretty
standard legal requirement across most public schools in America.
Um, you know, and, and here's another ripping away from childhood, um,
loving the snow days, hating going to school longer in June.
That's part of the package deal you're supposed to get is mass excitement
with snow, horrible disappointment of extra days in June.
That contributes to the growth and character that public schools are building.
I think so. I think you're right about that, Tim.
It's all part of life lessons and things don't always go the way you planned.
And, and sometimes you get lucky and the adults have to let you stay home.
I don't know, John, I'm like, it sounds like people are like, boy,
that's awfully nostalgic and I don't know.
I feel like this really is meaningful to have these days to, um, have a day off.
And I agree with, I agree with you 100%.
And I'm going to get like very, you know, touchy peole on this as well as nerdy with
the, you know, educational research and what we know about human development and
different cultures. There is a thing called wintering where things slow down.
And you kind of know going to full hibernation, but you do a lot of, you know,
work at, at the home, on the home front, you kind of take inventory,
you build in a little bit of extra rest because it's more tiring to be out in the
cold. Your body does more work on the inside.
Like it's just a generate heat to stay warm, you know, to navigate winter is
more work than navigating the mild or, uh, weathered months.
So I mean, given that human history has taught us that wintering is a thing,
human cultures around the world have, you know, taken part in.
I've always found snow days are kind of like what the kids sometimes say is they
need a mental health day.
The whole system, sometimes mother nature reminds us to just shut it down for a
few days, you know, just everybody take care of their home front, stay warm,
stay indoors, maybe get outside, shovel some snow, you know, as part of the day,
but slow things down, stay off the roads.
It's a safety issue as much as also a built in learning opportunity,
just an opportunity for the body to get that extra couple of days or even few
extra hours that help us stay healthy through the winter months.
So I've always been a big fan and, you know, that's why I'm, I'm with the
disappointed kids in New York, like, come on, give us a snow day, give us a snow
day, also we're going to have snow day memories, or we're going to do those
important things.
It's more than just nostalgic.
There is a bit of science to it as well.
And a bit of, you know, cultural history there as well.
Like, hey, you know, let's winter a bit, even if it's only for an afternoon,
or it's a late start, let's not turn that late start or that day,
that snow day into a busy, hectic, make sure everybody's on zoom.
Yeah, right?
Kind of day.
Yeah.
And it just reminds me of the whole idea of going, it's like, we need to have
this instructional time because if we lose instructional time, Johnny,
you know what that'll result in Jacob, you know this too, learning loss.
Well, we, I mean,
well, and just logistically, Tim, I like, I do want to go on the record.
Is that like the best of both worlds?
So everyone knows that schools plan for some inclement weather days,
like some days, some, some un predicted necessary days off, some lost learning
time.
So they map out their entire school year and they build into that some possible,
you know, that we might have to close for weather or we might have to close for,
you know, too many people have the flu kind of thing.
And if we take too many of those days, everyone listening to remembers,
when that's happened in their district, you have extra days added on in summer.
So my, I'm a big fan of best of both worlds, plan to have some snow days and
actually take them.
And then if you run out of those, utilize the other options like zoom and
online classrooms that we have built into our structure.
So that we don't have to add days on in the summer.
Oh, those years we did that, Tim, that was, that was rough on teachers.
I was rough on students.
That was awful.
You were, you know, stuck in school on the most beautiful days of summer,
extra days, because I don't too many snow days.
Jacob, I, I'm going to say, you know, I disagree with Johnny.
I think those extra days in the summer are part, part of the,
part of the pain, part of the full package, man.
No, I'm, I'm a best of both worlds at, I don't know.
But hey, you know what, though, looking forward and to the week ahead,
looks like there might be more of this on the way.
So, oh, no, Zepak, if you're listening or mayor mom,
donnie, check it out, man, give those kids a snow day in the future.
And at least give them one.
You know what I'm saying, Jacob?
I know what you're saying, Tim.
And frankly, if the education system is built in such a way that they say,
we've lost 0.27% of our learning time on the scale of a year,
the kids are going to explode.
They can't, they, they don't know anything now.
Maybe the system isn't preparing people very well.
That's just my thought, Tim.
Yeah, well, Jacob, but now it's time for your moment of Zen.
Behind the deceptive words designed to entice people into supporting violence,
words like democracy, freedom, self-defense, national security,
there is the reality of enormous wealth in the hands of a few,
while billions of people in the world are hungry, sick, and homeless.
Thanks for listening to Busted Pencil's home room podcast today.
And remember to grab other great podcasts filled with more Busted Pencils content
on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and of course, on the civic media website.
Hey, and don't miss this week's class and session on Wednesday and find our special
drop of Jacob's producers choice on Friday.
And of course, pencil busters, you can catch the Busted Pencils broadcast on Saturdays
at 3 p.m. Central time across all the civic media network stations for one hour
of your favorite blue collar scholars, Tim and Johnny, a Keith Busted Pencils.
Grab your coffee and don't book your pen.
Home room, home room, let's do it again.