After all is said and done, we can raise two cheers for the technology that enabled parents, educators, and even some students to avoid entirely losing instructional advantage during the long pandemic interval. The interactive videoconferencing, the ability to deliver content digitally, and the innovations in managing assignments proved close to miraculous in enabling the virtual classrooms that helped relieve the isolation that pandemic lockdowns imposed on kids. And then, for most, what alternative was there?

Surely some liked the results, especially noteworthy for those kids who preferred learning on their own and those unnerved by the dense, demanding social experience of modern schools. Some families liked the flexibility that the digital means permitted. Digital means also empowered innovative ways to collaborate.

Yet a chorus of voices called the expedients a failure and hoped to soon forget the stress of the interval’s technical difficulties, the distractions of the poorly adapted home setting, the deadening sedentary routine, the brand-new human phenomenon of “screen fatigue,” and the general physical torpor that long intervals of virtual learning imposed.

Imagine a sliding scale between pandemic-era compulsory e-learning and the voluntary, enriching play that kids get up to during a snow day, and you will see a range between duty and exuberance.

Snow days begin with a buzz as weather reports gather and school administrations decide whether to cancel classes. Better forecast models now allow closure announcements a day in advance. And in that stretch, kids will listen for the wind and look out the window for the first flakes to appear.

The prospect of novelty and relief from routine fuels their keenness. They mentally suit up. To anticipate playing is........

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