Examiner column for February 10.
Predictions of snow are magical in the classroom—no matter
the students’ age. Last week when they heard about “Snowpocalypse,” my college
students only regretted that most didn’t have classes Friday, and therefore
wouldn’t be missing school. (They hadn’t factored in the cancellations this
week!)
Local television stations cautioned that we should buy batteries, firewood, bottled water, food, and snow shovels. But my family and I had weathered the storms of 1979 and 1996 and never lost power—so why get ourselves in a twist? I stocked up on food, and made sure our flashlights had batteries.
Big snows have always seemed beneficial and romantic. Then
this snowfall arrived. My neighborhood lost power before 6 a.m. Saturday morning,
and didn’t have it back for 32 hours. For the first time I understood the
realism of all those Victorian novels where characters put bricks in
fireplaces, then wrap them in towels to place in beds for warmth overnight.
Those melodramatic passages now seemed perfectly reasonable.
When
the inside temperature of our house stayed at 49 degrees for 10 hours, I was
humming “My Fair Lady”: “Warm face, warm hands, warm feet, Oh wouldn’t it be
loverly?” I was, despite televised warnings, unprepared for the cold because
power outages had never happened to us during the winter. “Snowpocalypse”
quickly lost all magic as we wore gloves and coats indoors, and struggled to
keep our parrot warm—who was scarily still and shivering.
Now
that power has been restored, I think there could be a lesson for students in
the experience of so many thousands during this historic storm. I found myself
looking back on my storm preparations with the sardonic wisdom of a reality
check: it may be cute to load up on chips and dips, but when it’s cold, all you
care about is making it through those hours with your children and pets
unharmed. Suddenly everything that had seemed important before the storm seems
trivial, and you have a new perspective on the world.
The
same phenomenon occurs during all natural disasters, family tragedies, and
major life events over which we have no control. When we are part of something
larger than we are—whether a personal setback or a community project that
benefits people in need of help—a healthy reordering of priorities occurs.
Realizing that we often focus our energies on trivial matters forces us to
reexamine what’s really important.
Recommending
that all students go a day or two without power is just plain silly, but
recommending that all students participate in community service that would
expose them to people who are cold and hungry and in need is not at all silly,
and should be a requirement for high school and college graduations.
As
adults, we can lobby for community service projects in local schools. Students
have the power to improve morale in homeless shelters, assisted living
facilities, and hospitals with their youthful energy. In giving to others, they
would begin to see their own lives with new perspective and might reorder their
priorities. The survival lessons from this historic storm would thereby hold
long-term benefits, and not just painful memories.
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