Last Wednesday, February 6 we had the first snow day that I have seen in my many years going to school. Everyone I have talked to since loved it, we even have articles on this very site praising how relaxing and nice it was to have that break. Luis Rodriguez’s article did a fantastic job talking about the snow and most people’s opinions on it, but rather than hop on that bandwagon, I am going to point out what no one seems to be mentioning: How did dropping a day in the middle of the week effect the motivation of our students?

Every day since last Wednesday that it has snowed, I hear people saying that they hope it will be another snow day. “Snow day part 2” has become a frequently sighted phrase across my social media. the turnout in classes the day following the snow day appeared less than stellar just looking about my classes on Thursday. It seems that the moment we had that snow day everyone’s week basically ended motivation-wise, and everyone’s patience for the snow and commuting through it was lost and still hasn’t returned.

It would be dishonest of me to say I didn’t enjoy my snow day. I relaxed and took a nice break from life’s responsibilities. The thing, though, about taking a day off from these responsibilities is that coming back to them is very hard, especially when you are in as frequent a routine as school.

The lack of motivation and people wanting another snow day just to not have to be here brings up a far more important question: Why don’t students want to be at school? This questioned has been asked far before I was even able to pick up a keyboard and write and I’m afraid it has no easy answer and fixing it is an even more difficult task. Regardless of how much fun we had on our snow day, and how much students enjoy being out of class, it seems to have had a more negative effect overall on our students motivation and drive to attend their classes.