Delaying kindergarten, also known as red shirting, has become a privileged choice of educated and economically advantaged families in the United States.

Once upon a time, education experts touted the equity of full-day kindergarten programs, Head Starts, and Preschools for All. The idea began noble enough. Who could argue with the goal to provide an academic leg-up and reduced childcare costs for low-income and at-risk families?

In decades past, most early education occurred in the home. Public kindergarten was half-day and preschools were called nursery schools, basically childcare for older children to maybe learn the alphabet. As more families needed to dedicate both parents to income-earning jobs, schools stepped into that gap, attempting to provide that early learning and childcare equitably across the socioeconomic board.

But then, typical American capitalism weighed in and schools had to provide measurable results in order to justify the costs. Instead of just providing safe places to play and explore, places to simply be loved and cared for while parents were at work, places where we nourished the emotional well-being and rolled with the natural curiosity of children, schools were required to crank out academic achievement at levels far beyond the psychological development of their students.

And now the script has flipped. Kindergarten isn’t what it used to be, and people are catching on. The studies show it, and parents see it. It’s just too advanced and too much sitting for five and six year olds. Educated and well-off parents are either paying top dollar for an extra year of childcare or choosing to keep one parent at home at significant income loss in order to delay traditional school until their children are more ready developmentally because they can see the detrimental effects of force-fed early academics and can afford to intervene for their children.

Where once the opportunity to enroll students in early education for all seemed an academic (early learning that was no longer feasible at home) and economic (free childcare) advantage, delaying kindergarten has now become the privileged choice (available only to those who can swing the cost of an extra year at home), while the underprivileged are back to being stuck with a suboptimal option for their children.

And I want to call it like it is—a privilege–because it makes me so sad. To some extent, public school will always have to categorize students, but school can and should be a beautiful and healthy place to grow, not a place just to be force-fed.

Most teachers and administrators grasp that we are pushing students beyond their ability to be productive learners. They see the ramifications every day. Students burned out by fourth grade. Behavior and learning issues that might not be an issue if students were allowed grace to learn at their own pace. Students unable to problem-solve outside the box. Students so used to rote learning and hand-holding that by middle school they no longer know how to learn on their own. Students who assume learning can only happen in a structured classroom with the teacher talking at them. Curiosity and risk-taking discouraged beginning at age four, exactly the age when curiosity and risk-taking should be revered.

On the other hand, students who stay home an extra year or remain in standard childcare settings, or those who do alternative (and costly) programs in the early elementary years seem to have far fewer behavioral and learning challenges, seem far more able and willing to pursue their own learning for learning’s sake, and seem far more engaged in the classroom.

These options are now considered a gift of both time and space. Shouldn’t that gift be the norm?

American bureaucracy always feels compelled to justify its spending only with mathematically measurable outcomes. But what about happiness and excitement for school and learning? What about curiosity and risk-taking? Aren’t these qualities we also want to provide the world? Don’t these qualities also contribute to the GDP?

We must embrace early learning and free childcare options that allow working parents the ability to support their families, but not at the expense of children’s emotional and academic development. It’s important to call out this flip as privilege precisely because the original goal–equity–has had the opposite effect. We must recognize the deviation so we can correct course.

Capitalism has its place, but we must tone it down in the realm of education so that we can, paradoxically, compete later. Simply put, education is outside of immediate measurable competition. Perhaps we can find a way for American capitalism to embrace delayed gratification, if only in this arena.

Multnomah Village, Woodstock, Hollywood, Roseway Heights, Belmont, Hawthorne, Hillsdale, Foster-Powell. All of these places have personalities and spirit all their own. And they also have schools which have served their communities for generations. Almost all the elementary schools in Portland are literally nestled among blocks and blocks of residential homes. Many of them are not even adjacent to busy streets. It creates a beautiful feeling of connectedness.

Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby books even made some Portland schools famous. Ramona and Beezus walked to school through their neighborhood. And Fernwood, Grant, and Gregory Heights (now Roseway Heights) will forever warmly remind us of Ramona, Beezus, Howie, and their friends and neighbors.

The history of the Portland Public Schools is messy and complex, just like any other big district. But in these times of Covid and chaos, Portland has a great opportunity to restore order and comfort for students through its schools. The infrastructure is already there. Although many of these schools have been in flux for years as charter schools, closed buildings, or multi-campus experiments, the buildings could just as easily be returned to their old-fashioned neighborhood public school selves.

Other districts in the nation could learn from the power of these neighborhoods and their schools. What makes the return to neighborhood elementary schools so important right now?

Shared Experience: Children who grow up together and attend the same school will always have people they can connect with on the basis of that shared experience. As they grow, they are able to reminisce about teachers, playground adventures, the times when the cafeteria almost caught fire or someone threw up or so-and-so broke their arm on the monkey bars. They have a whole collection of shared seasons.

Community connection: As children build shared experiences together, so do the adults in their lives. The neighborhood school becomes a place for the whole surrounding community to gather, celebrate, fundraise, and build up their students.

Geographical groundedness: Neighborhood schools provide children a physical space to grow intellectually, emotionally, physically, and perhaps spiritually. When they are able to connect deeply to a geographical location through the experience of growing up and spending time there, they grow to love and care for it. They learn to become invested in the neighborhood as a whole: the people and the environment. The school building provides the home base from which to spread out and care for larger and larger circles of influence. First the neighborhood, the city, and the state, then the nation and the world. When students have roots, they have more confidence to fly.

A stable foundation: Sometimes family life is just chaotic. Sometimes the world is chaotic. But schools don’t have to be. Especially if they are neighborhood-oriented, understand their demographic, and create traditions to look forward to, neighborhood schools can control the culture within the building. They can be a second home, a stable foundation, a place where students can come and expect routine, learning, attention, and care.

Neighborhood schools are often largely homogenous. In the big world, we often see this as a negative. But at the elementary level, it allows the teachers and administration to really understand the demographic, to care for students very specifically. As long as teachers guide students to remember that there’s a big world out there, this builds stability, safety, and eventually confidence so that upon graduation to middle school or above, kids are confident enough in themselves and their identity that they are able to branch out and find connections with others beyond their root community.

Perhaps maintaining the infrastructure of neighborhood schools is expensive. That’s not my area of expertise. But as someone who is naturally a shepherd, who cares empathetically and emphatically for the psychological wellbeing of my students, I know that whatever the cost, neighborhood schools are a good investment. We need psychological and social wellbeing more than anything else right now.

There’s a time and place to scale things back. This is it.

I know that school is miserable for many children. It wasn’t for me, but I had the benefit of a neighborhood public elementary school and then a neighborhood Catholic school. I believe that the shared experiences with my peers, the geographical groundedness, and long-term community connection created the stable foundation that made all the difference.

There is a time and a place for educational experiments. K-8s, magnets that draw students from all different neighborhoods, and charter schools make an enriching educational experience. But if a neighborhood or neighborhood school isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it. And if a neighborhood school doesn’t exist, perhaps it’s time to build it.

It all comes back to stability, the number one things students and teachers are craving as we navigate the end to the Covid-19 pandemic. A neighborhood school is like a warm hug. As we figure out how to relate to one another without masks. As we figure out how to relate to each other in person. We’re already seeing all the negative consequences of Covid isolation, stress, and fear playing out in the classrooms and hallways. Students are fighting so much some schools have had to return to remote learning. We’re hearing gunshots, students are dying. We need familiar faces. We need faces, period. We need hugs.

SOMETHING DRASTIC MUST BE DONE.

The return to neighborhood schools is both drastic and doable, especially in Portland. So let’s do it.

My name is Katie and when I’m in the classroom, my students call me Mrs. Crews. It’s been a while, so I figured a reintroduction was in order.

Full disclosure, I haven’t been in the classroom regularly in nearly four years because we moved across the country and back, and my children were little and needed me at home. For some of you, that will give me more credibility because I’ve been mostly removed from the chaos that is American public education at the moment. And for some of you, this will give me less credibility, for the same reason. It is what it is.

A bit about me: I love sports, riding my bicycle, that first deep breath after stepping into an Oregon forest. I read widely, from history to young adult fantasy to classics. Favorite authors include Isabel Allende, Barbara Kingsolver, Erik Larson, and Laini Taylor. And anything 90s culture makes me feel happy and safe, from television like Dawson’s Creek to music from Matchbox Twenty to Lisa Frank and pogs.

I began my own education journey in Portland Public Schools and continued in Portland’s Catholic schools. I graduated with my own teaching license in 2009…when nobody was retiring or hiring.

So I subbed.

And I absolutely fell in love with it.

Everything happens for a reason, and as much as I fought to have my own classroom, my personality really thrives in subbing and it’s such a service to full time teachers. I’ve done the day-to-day gigs and several long-term placements. I’ve seen all sorts of classrooms and schools, public and private. Things that work, things that don’t, and all kinds of creative solutions in between. When I’m not subbing, I read books and blogs about education. It’s made me a very good observer of the education milieu in Oregon.

I hopped on Twitter again recently, mostly because I wanted a place to spout my thoughts and opinions in relative anonymity. Sometimes a girl just needs a place to be angry and outraged and feel like she’s making a difference without alienating people she actually knows IRL. Alas, I have made enough of a splash that people have started reading this blog again. So much has happened in the education space since the last time I updated, I figured it was time for a reboot. For the blog, and for education in the wake of Covid.

To be honest, I’ve spent a lot of this last year trying to figure out how to engage. My heart has always been in schools and education, since I was a little girl.  But the last two years have been so overwhelming, I didn’t even know where to start. But I always come back to writing. However, I’ve hesitated to add more noise to the fray. And the world is increasingly visual, so I’ve wondered about putting forth the effort to write. Will anyone read it?

Apparently yes, you will.

So, thank you. And cheers to rebooting American public education.

I had considered and prayed about several words, but nothing stuck, until, of all things, I was crafting a fanfiction story about an alternate universe relationship pairing where the characters gave themselves a second shot at love, fatherhood, and belonging, amidst a whole lot tragedy and brokenness.

It was a complete switch from the ship I’ve shipped half my life, but after watching a later season of the show and seeing the dynamics of new characters in contrast to the original, I knew I had to write this story. Even though it’s just head-canon, it had the potential to breathe life back into the characters.

In a word: Redeeming.

Therefore, I have a whopping two goals this year:

1. Write redeeming stories.
2. Speak redeeming words.

It’s what I need. It’s what my family needs. It’s what my city needs. It’s what our whole world needs. We need redemption.

I do have a list of things to accomplish this year, but now everything will run through this filter. Does it give life?

I took a good look at my personality and my season of life, in order to pare down and craft a few other objectives for the year.

1. To cultivate a creative practice
2. To build a body of completed work
3. To build momentum by investing my time in creating things that give near-immediate feedback.
4. To focus on completing one thing at a time.

My specific projects for the year are broken down by month. I’ve tried the quarterly thing, but in this season of life, I just need to focus on smaller increments. So I picked just one or two big projects each month that I can actually complete in that short time frame. I want to be able to check things off and battle my distraction tendencies.

So here’s to 2021, a year of redeeming words and stories, creating momentum, and putting things out there.

I woke up to your name across the main headline of CNN. National news. You rarely make national news. And yet, my heart was crushed for you, and I knew it was time. To share my love for you, my deep care and jealousy for you.

We’ll start with the love songs. Right now it’s “Remember You Young” by Thomas Rhett. Obviously this song is about a person, but when I hear it, I think of you. I have 35 years of history, roots, and wings here, Portland. Years of discovering new neighborhoods, old homes, stunning murals. Years of laughing at your goofy creativity, eating weird donuts, (un)usual moments on the bus. I have played recreational soccer or lacrosse on nearly every one of your park and school fields. You are a beautiful city, a gem in this nation.

The other song that always makes me think of you is “Kiss the Rain” by Billie Myers, because duh. It rains a lot here. But honestly, this song reminds me of you right now because we are in a deep, dark, and rainy season. Clearly, we have some deep-seated racial issues that must be addressed. Your anger is fair and valid. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. And they just got worse. National news over a fatal shooting after 90+ days of protesting involving riots, federals agents, and moms linking arms. What a mess. A swath of downtown has been seriously damaged and vacated, in part because of the pandemic and in part from the unrest.

The nation is watching, Portland. I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t so heartbroken. We can blame a divisive president or a passive mayor; there’s a lot of right and a lot of wrong on both ends. Mostly, there’s a lot of extreme.

“Kiss the Rain” leaves us with hope though. Even though things are broken and separated, we can go outside and kiss the rain and find connection. Ultimately, Dear Portland, we must do battle for healing and restoration. I’ll probably save the specifics for later letters, but for now I want to share one more love song with you.

When I hear the song, “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton, I am always transported back to the beautiful Portland autumn of 2003. I’m riding across town from Eastmoreland through Laurelhurst and Grant Park, to the field on NE Tillamook below the old Wilcox School. My best friend is driving and we’re headed to soccer practice. It was freedom and independence. It was thrilling. I came of age here, Portland, and you supported me with space to roam and explore while still feeling safe. I grew and stretched here.

Now I see that you are growing and stretching. It’s awkward and painful, but it’s due time for that. Let me support you. I would walk A Thousand Miles for you.

In fact, I actually did drive about 2500 miles for you, my Dear Portland. You see, my little family moved to Detroit two years ago for a fabulous job offer. We were homesick and there was some culture shock (mostly because there was no culture, and apparently, we’re snobs haha!), but we didn’t hate it. We had a pretty good thing going. And then the pandemic hit. And things shut down and stayed that way with no end in sight. And we realized that we needed you. So we sold our house and drove home. You make me feel grounded. Your geography is familiar and predictable. I need you when schools and libraries and community centers are closed. I need to be able to jump on the freeway and drive mindlessly to somewhere I know. There’s a reason people grow up here, leave for awhile, but come back.

So I knew things would be different here because of the pandemic. But I did not expect such rage and destruction and division. I suppose it has been simmering for many years. And I know that these protests and scenes of unrest do not physically touch every neighborhood, but there is a pallor of dread hanging over you, Portland.

I guess what I’m saying is, I love you Portland. Your story isn’t over yet. Change is hard. But whatever you are afraid of, Portland, it’s not as scary as boarded up windows, shots in the night, police unable to respond to regular 911 calls. Sit down. Hear the anger. Arrest the criminals. Return from this a city worth looking up to. Because you are worth it.

In Love, Katie

But it’s not all about academics. And I don’t think I’m alone.

In recent years, preschool has become increasingly academic and sometimes people wonder if we send our kids to preschool to give them an academic edge. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I hate that kindergarten, and by extension, preschool has morphed into this sort of frantic, must-teach-kids-to-read-and-all-the-maths, kind of environment. Even my children’s preschool teachers aren’t really into this schedule, but their hands are kind of tied.

So why do I (and many other parents) send our kids to preschool anyway?

The Village. This idea goes for both parents and the kids themselves. In my world, we don’t have any family nearby for thousands of miles. Preschool is our Village. It’s a safe place to send my children so I can regroup, write, or just clean the house in peace. For my children, it’s a place for them to build early friendships, learn some social skills, and learn to interact with adults that aren’t me.

No More Daycare. By the time children are three, regular Daycare no longer really exists for them. It just automatically becomes academically-oriented. If simple daycare was available for another year or so, I’d be happy to send my kids to a place where they could just play and be read to and loved on. They will eventually learn to read and do math and become functioning adults. I’m not worried, and I’m not sure why everyone has adopted this frenetic pace.

The Expertise. I taught middle and high school. I have no idea what a three and four year old should be capable of doing. So I guess some of my reasons are “academic,” but perhaps “child-development” would be more accurate. Eventually my children will go to full-time, Big Kid school. They will need to have some preparation. I don’t feel qualified to give it to them, and frankly I’m not all that into much “pre-school” activities besides reading aloud. So I send them to preschool.

So what do I expect for them during their days out of the house with other kids and adults? I want them to be loved and cared for. I want them to be read-aloud to. I want them to play all day. I want them to receive positive attention, learn how to speak kindly and take turns, and play outside as much as possible.

You feel me?

We see the blogs and videos daily that address the over-academisizing of our youngest. I totally get that children who get early access to literacy tend to be more successful later on. Programs like Head Start are great. I just wish they weren’t so literally academic. We’ve forgotten that Free Play really is a child’s work. It’s extremely productive for them to just explore. Remember that many European countries don’t do real schooling until age seven.

In urban areas, we’re seeing a real rise in alternative preschool programs that meet in parks or the forest and the like. And some schools really do pull off a play-based preschool. If this could be the norm, I think a lot of parents would be really happy. Working parents have to send their children somewhere. When children age-out of Daycare, the only next option is preschool.

We’re going to send our kids anyway, for whatever reasons we have. But we need to create more of a win-win scenario where parents don’t feel caught between earning a paycheck and sacrificing their children to lose their love of learning by age five.

There’s a lot of systemic change that goes into this of course. But I just wanted to get us all thinking about it.

We’ve all gotten a little lax in our acceptance of preschool and kindergarten academics. Time to think about how to tone it back down.

I could be pushing a grocery cart through Kroger or waiting in line for a prescription at CVS and a song comes on the radio. A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton or Kiss the Rain by Billie Myers or I’ll Be Missing You by Diddy, 112, and Faith Evans or Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden. Backstreet Boys. Barenaked Ladies. Blink 182.

And I’m completely swept away, physically present in my current adult surroundings, but totally in another place and time emotionally.

Anyone else experience this?

Kiss the Rain is especially electric in this way for me. In present life, I’m waiting to pick up a prescription for my asthmatic two-year-old. In my mind, it’s deep autumn. 1997 or so. It’s obviously raining in Portland, Oregon. And I’m swaying awkwardly in a circle of my other middle school friends in a half-darkened gymnasium on SE 39th Avenue. It’s cozy and familiar, but also fresh and new. Thumping music, full of possibility.

A Thousand Miles is equally evocative. Except for that one, I’m 16 and riding through NE Portland with my friend Andrea to soccer practice. She’s driving. We left the parents at home. We’re in a part of the city that’s new to us. The sun is shining, the windows are down, and autumn is in the air. We are riding high on freedom, independence, and the striking newness of adolescence.

It’s the power of story set to music. There’s the story in the lyrics. The story in the melody. And the story that my mind associates with both.

When I first moved to Detroit, I discovered a radio station from Canada that was particularly fond of playing My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion, the tune that for anyone alive in the late 90s will always conjure up Rose and Jack. And every time that song came on, I was back in my Catholic school cafeteria, playing Gossip with my friends around our circular tables. Jenna is munching on chips and drinking Jolt. I’m laughing so hard I nearly choke.

For me, music that takes me away so thoroughly is such a comfort when I’m in a completely new situation. I’ve never lived anywhere long-term besides Portland. And probably in times of stress and responsibility and the often daily blandness of raising babies in the suburbs, my mind is ripe for escape.

I haven’t always been this frumpy. And therefore, one day I will probably emerge from this season. It’s good for me to go back there sometimes. It enhances my appreciation for the present when I remember that life is good in every season.

So for those of you stuck in adulting and feeling bored and stuck and perhaps far from home, put on that old middle and high school or college playlist while you clean the bathrooms or wait in the carpool line. I think losing ourselves in nostalgic music for a few minutes a day can be a pretty healthy option for wellness and mental perspective.

So, what’s on your playlist and where does it take you?

Teaching is a calling. We all know that. Nobody does this for the money. I think it might even be genetic. When I graduated from undergrad, I had no idea what to do next. I didn’t pick teaching on a whim, however. In fact, I tried teaching in a classroom as an undergrad and didn’t like it. I preferred the more carefree silliness of camp and youth group.

But then I grew a little older, with a little more separation between me and K-12. And then I seriously considered how I’d spent my summers counseling at summer camp and my Wednesday nights leading small groups for years and my springs coaching high school girls lacrosse. So I entered a Masters program and totally loved it.

And then I realized that I am a fourth generation teacher on my mom’s side. See, it’s genetic.

Since then I’d spent every school year in a classroom, either one of my own, or subbing. Until the Fall of 2018. When I was whisked across the country to a new city and state and community because my husband got a new job (Which is awesome, by the way. No regrets there).

But. Logistically it makes no sense to work. I no longer have family nearby to pick up the kids or be my backup. I am the flex parent. Sometimes I’m bitter about that, but mostly I’m okay.

Financially it makes no sense to sub. School districts here have a terrible system for recruiting subs and pay nowhere near enough to cover childcare for my preschooler and toddler. Such a shame. Subbing is a great flexible job. They’re missing out on a big swath of potentially available subs–moms who want to work but need to stay flexible. But the cost of living here is far less than the place we left, and although I feel personal pressure to earn a paycheck to feel useful, we actually don’t need me to work. I’m learning to lean into that gift.

Basically, as I enter this new year and new decade, I’ve been reflecting a lot on this season. And overall, I’m really happy. Being sort of forced to stay home with my children while they’re this young has been a real blessing. It’s been good for them for sure. And I have grown a lot. I’m more confident and I feel like I can do most anything now. I have learned how to bring my kiddos along with me for pretty much everything and we just make it work.

Living far from home has been tricky, but overcome-able. We have been well cared for here. We have a great church community. I’m volunteering in the middle school youth group again. I have learned to be observant with my eyes and ears and found all the kid-friendly things to do. I’ve made friends. My toddler is in a great daycare and my daughter is also in a wonderful school community. I’m proud of myself for listening to my intuition and discerning good places for them to be. This is what our village looks like right now.

My biggest revelations: I’m embracing this season. I’m all in. But teaching and school are in my blood. I won’t be gone forever.

What we have not yet embraced is the idea of seasons of life as it relates to work-life balance. Especially for parents. Especially for moms.

Seasons, cycles, chapters. They’re all synonomous, and as individuals we have learned to wrestle, embrace, accept, or fight them. But the truth is, we all roll through seasons and as a society, we must talk about them and learn to honor them, accept them, and make accommodations for one another.

Let’s just talk about seasons and chapters in a woman’s life since that’s where my experience lies. An average middle-class woman’s life might look like this:

Graduates high school. Goes to college and graduates. Gets a job. Gets married or enters a long-term domestic partnership. Gets pregnant and has her first child. Goes back to work. Gets pregnant and has second child. Chooses to stay home. Children go off to school full-time. Mom returns to work. Mom needs time off to care for sick children. Goes back to work. Needs time off to care for aging parents. Goes back to work. These forays into the workforce might or might not include different jobs or careers. Some moms go back to school themselves along this life path.

Obviously, there are many variations of this experience. But the general idea is that life happens. As a culture, we would do well to really wrestle with this issue and create accommodations as people come and go from the workforce.

We need to elevate caregiving in the general cultural mindset.

We need some version of universal healthcare so we aren’t tied to jobs simply for the health insurance.

People need to feel free to care for their families.

The most obvious season that has come under fire in recent discussion is pregnancy and parental leave. The thing is, we need to repopulate. As a society, we need to have babies. If you don’t want to have babies yourself, that’s totally fine. But as a society, babies need to happen. That’s just the way things work.

The effects of ignoring life seasons, especially in the life of a mother, can be really detrimental both for her and her children. Children are our most precious commodity as a family and a society. While we don’t need to coddle or spoil our children, we would do well to care for children by caring for parents. And this includes embracing all the seasons of life.

Sure, this is a little bit of a political issue, but it’s also a lot bit of a mental health issue, and lot bit of a humanity issue. We live together. We make this society happen together. We all have our gifts and our weaknesses. We would do well to give each other grace and kindness whatever the situation, and this includes mothers and parents in the workplace.

When a woman feels free to prioritize her family without jeopardizing her job, career, and income, she will be a better employee whenever she is working. She will be less stressed, less distracted, and less overwhelmed. She will be a stronger caretaker. Babies don’t stay babies forever. That mom will still be intelligent, capable, and motivated when she returns to the workforce. And her children will feel loved and cared for and ready to take on the world as competent adults themselves. Win-win.

When we ignore the season of life that is caring for young children, especially in the name of workplace competition or the general economy, we short-side everyone. Moms feel compelled to stay engaged because they need the money or want to maintain their career and thus their children may be stuck in an unhealthy care situation out of necessity because Mom can’t be in two places at once. Then she feels guilty. And if Mom stays home, she feels guilty or less than because we don’t respect caregiving as a profession.

And if a mom wants to work but needs to stay flexible, this is the 21st century. Jobs can be super flexible.

Take care of our moms and families and allow freedom for rolling with seasons, and I think we’ll see our moms blossom at work and at home.

It’s a scene I can completely relate to. But never as a student. The only times I have felt enough on the outside to eat lunch in the bathroom is while substitute teaching. And it’s not the students who make me feel that way. It’s the teachers in the teachers’ lounge.

Look, I get it. I have also worked as a full-time teacher. Teachers are tired. We need to vent. We are frustrated with like, literally, everything to do with school from admin to students to politics. We are there because we know that students need a safe space to just learn and everything seems to be getting in the way of our goals and it’s all out of our control. The teachers’ lounge is our safe place.

The first problem is that teachers are often so caught up in their own conversations at lunch that they forget to greet or even acknowledge the new person. Let’s remember that subs are an integral part of making a school function, and at one point or another, every teacher gets sick and needs a sub. If you include us in your lunchtime, we’re much more likely to want to return and help you out.

And the bigger problem is that the conversations swirling around the invisible sub centers on negative talk about students. This alienates us further. And makes us feel really uncomfortable because we don’t know the students. Now our only impression of these kids is negative.

I know students can be troublesome. But we teachers need to be aware of our surroundings. We need to find ways to have intentional, productive, and professional conversations in the teachers’ lounge that allow some release of frustration but also seek solutions within our confines and don’t make outsiders uncomfortable. We want to build up our students and create the community that we preach in the classrooms and hallways.

And we want to walk away from lunch feeling edified and uplifted ourselves.

So how do we do that?

1. Keep each other accountable. Be an upstander. Say something to your colleagues.
2. Create a lunchroom pact as a group. Write out your conversation guidelines and put them in the middle of the table and up on the bulletin board in the teachers’ lounge.
3. Keep a book of Would-You-Rathers and Fun Questions in the lounge to keep the conversation light.
4. Create a policy for how to have professional, work-related conversations that seek solutions and don’t devolve into a gossip sesh. Post it in the room.
5. Address lunchroom etiquette as a whole staff.
6. And at the very least, say hello and create space for your subs to sit and participate in the conversation

Now, go forth and transform the conversation in your teachers’ lounge, really for everyone’s benefit.