Snow Days Help Us Appreciate School

The first snow day is a celebration. A change from routine, we shovel and play. We hang out with our kids and friends, drink hot beverages and read the books and magazines piled up around the house. By the second, third, fourth…sixth ! snow day, we are restless. We are tired of shoveling and we yearn for engagement. We miss our peers at school and work.

Snow days are also time for reflection. We think about our lives. We may have a sudden desire to live in a warmer climate and we all love to complain about public transportation but we also appreciate what we have. Parents of K-12 students become aware of how important school is in their children’s learning as well as their social lives.

For the students, staff and faculty at North Bennet Street School, we appreciate not only the warm homes that shelter us on snow days, we value the unique NBSS teaching and learning experience that is unlike most post-secondary schools. Training in traditional trades engages our hands and minds. We cherish the opportunity to learn and to pass on skills to others.

Bookbinding student Todd Davis says there’s no place he’d rather be on a snowy day than at his bench.

North Bennet Street School isn’t the school for everyone but increasingly educators and civic leaders are recognizing that a traditional college education is not the only path to success, nor is it the right path for everyone. A couple of years ago, Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez CF ’99, President of NBSS, wrote an essay titled, “The myth of college for all.” He cited a Harvard Graduate School of Education study titled “Pathways to Prosperity,” which detailed the low graduation rate in traditional colleges and affirms the importance of non-traditional paths to meaningful careers.

For the students who recognized their passion to work with their hands and have found North Bennet Street School, the engagement is visceral and snow days are an obstacle. When classes were cancelled, students complained. They want to be at their benches, they don’t want to miss even one day of training.

North Bennet Street School, located in a new spacious facility in Boston’s North End, has been teaching professional trades for more than 100 years. The intensive, hands-on training is a great way to jumpstart a new career or learn hand-skills for personal enrichment.

Register now for a workshop or sign up for an information session and learn more about the full-time programs in bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, carpentry, jewelry making and repair, locksmithing and security technology, piano technology, preservation carpentry, and violin making and repair.