From flushing ice cubes down the toilet to wearing pajamas inside out, practically everyone will do anything to get a snow day. Students everywhere go crazy for snow days, but students aren’t the only ones with the day off. Ever wonder what teachers do on a typical snow day? But in this exclusive interview, Berkley High School teachers fess up to what they truly do on this special day.
Teachers from different departments all do very different things than what students may expect. The stereotypical expectation for what English teachers do is to read in their free time, but English teachers such as Mr. Cierpial and Mrs. Lotter’s responses contradict this stereotype. We also predict that math teachers would be making practice problems for their kids at home, but math teacher Ms. Konwinski goes against the expectation. Not only do teachers value their snow days, but so do helpers around the schools. Although Parapro, Sweik doesn’t have any papers to grade, she still enjoys her days off.
There are many unexpected things teachers do on snow days that students wouldn’t necessarily expect. First off, English teachers Mr. Cierpial and Mrs. Lotter. Although they are both English teachers, they spend their snow days very differently. Senior Zach Beylerian thought Lotter would spend her snow days “reading a nice book with a cup of coffee and playing in the snow with her son”, Beylerian wasn’t far off with his expectation. Lotter spent her snow days “hanging out with my [her] son and reading many books for fun”. On the other hand, Cierpial spends his snow days cooking his family’s comfort foods, “a big broccoli / tofu / rice noodle stir fry with peanut sauce”. Freshman Riley Melville did not exactly expect him to be cooking a feast for his family. She thought more along the lines of reading all day then coming back to tell his students about his wonderful day reading. As you can see Cierpial and Lotter have very different activities when it comes to a snow day.
Math teacher Konwinski does something very similar to Cierpial. Konwinski stated “I love making ‘snowstorm cakes’ from a story my kids, and I liked from when they were little”. Many students believe that they need a snow day more than the teachers. Although it’s not a competition, Konswinski states, “I LOVE snow days WAAAAYYYY more than students :)” This shows that teachers value their days off and take advantage of every snow day they get.
Although Ms. Sweik doesn’t have a curriculum to follow and plan for, she still enjoys her snow days alone with her dog and her kids while they cuddle up on the couch binge watching t.v. Senior Olivia Sweik expressed, “My mom works all the time, so when she has a day off she doesn’t do much. If anything, she’d catch up on cleaning the house or watching tv with our dog”.
Even though not all teachers do exactly what students expect them to do, every teacher values and appreciates those days where they can do whatever they want to make their snow days memorable and relaxing for them.