My favorite part of my job isn’t actually part of my job. As a public high school teacher in a state and district with a teachers’ union, my contract entitles me to a “tax-free” lunch. But over the years, I have happily and somewhat proudly developed a lunch staff.
Many teachers have lunch squads. This is the same group of students who have chosen to be based in the classroom during the week. When I was a first-year teacher and first started at this school/district, I would leave my classroom door open during lunch breaks in hopes that my colleagues would come over to chat or eat together. , it was the students who gradually began to take advantage of the door I opened. door policy.
While working contract hours, I’m still exploring healthy and sustainable boundaries, but making the classroom a place where a shifting group of young people share food and talk with each other helps me grow as a teacher. I believe that I have made a tangible impact. Children’s learning and activities at school.
the kids weren’t okay
My first year of teaching was the first full year post-COVID-19. When our district went remote for three semesters, it was difficult for students to relearn socialization and navigate changing friendships and relationships with each other and adults in the school. I realized that. Whether that means not interacting with people you don’t know, yelling profanities at someone, or sitting alone on your phone, I want to help students be present in their communities. and observed them struggling to deal with their problems. Social anxiety and frustration during class.
Although many teachers don’t necessarily see students frequently outside of class, high schools have much more time than school hours. Lunch break in American high schools is such a culturally ingrained experience that I’d wager that anyone who went through this school system has a vivid image of what it means. Some of the cliches that come to mind are food fights, awkward moves across the cafeteria, or eating lunch alone in the bathroom.
A little more than a decade ago, during my first few weeks as a student at a public high school, I experienced all of these scenarios in excruciating detail. I transferred schools between 9th and 10th grade, but I’ll never forget the first week of second grade when my teammate’s mom named her my friend. Against her will, I might add. She was so frustrated and I was so frustrated that we ended up eating a PB&J in a stall at the end of the women’s room. From that day on, I worked up the courage to sit with some students I knew and established a routine of sitting in a corner outside my history teacher’s classroom. That group of children became my lifelong friends, and it was that teacher who inspired me to pursue a career in education, and who continues to influence my education to this day. When I think back to my high school days, it’s these interactions and moments that stick with me.
I’d like to say that I intentionally cultivated a community of food sharing in my classroom, but no, it evolved naturally. All I did was decide it was okay for everyone to eat in the classroom and scavenge two old microwaves and a small refrigerator. From there, I watched the culture of breaking bread and eating it together evolve naturally within the community, led by the children in their own rooms. This practice of eating and sharing food seems to play a big role in making my classroom feel open and welcoming to different groups of friends and young individuals.
salad bowl and melting pot
One of my favorite things about my school is that the diverse identities and cultures of all of our students are represented. The challenge we face with this diversity is overcoming barriers and tensions between different factions and student groups, especially those who primarily speak different languages and have vastly different home cultures.
During class, students encounter many difficulties that prevent them from participating in learning, such as being hungry or not knowing how to communicate with other students at the same table. I would like to preface this by saying that many teachers legitimately do not allow food in the classroom for a variety of reasons, including to prevent pests and disruption, especially in laboratory science classes where food is a safety issue. Not allowed. Nevertheless, allowing students to eat in my classroom has led to a great deal of interaction between students who normally would not acknowledge each other’s presence, and over time I have found it easier to collaborate with and help the student. I feel more comfortable and confident in asking for things.
Sharing bags of the popular potato chips is one way students can interact with each other and find out what they have in common, but another thing that happens especially during lunch time is that students It’s about learning about common and completely different cultures through food. Some of the students on my unofficial lunch crew bring me food whenever the cultural club has an event or fundraiser. I’ve enjoyed homemade falafel wraps, pupusas, and lumpia. If you’re not particularly hungry, don’t hesitate to offer a falafel or tear a pupusa in half and share it with a random student at their request.
Last year, when I saw a semi-regular student on my lunch crew warming her up. injera and wot In my microwave, another student in a lower grade and I both noticed the dish. That led us to talk about her Eritrean family and how we became friends. Besides the nice ancillary benefit of getting a portion of injera, small interactions like this are important to me. Because it exemplifies how Open Door Lunchtime can help you get to know your community and build connections between different students.
take-out dessert
If you are reading this from a non-teacher perspective, it is important to understand that I am incredibly lucky to be able to do this in my classroom. I would not have been able to do any of this without the support of my union and my school, which allocated me a consistent classroom and provided me with resources such as napkins and running water.
Most of the students I work with during my career enjoy reheating their lunches, chatting with other teachers, and spending their 40 minutes of free time each day playing outside on the field or elsewhere on our beautiful campus. Masu. But my hope is that by building a culture of sharing food in my room, my students will experience a welcoming and safe space when they walk through my door.
One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I’ve always felt comfortable in the classroom. No matter where my family moved during my K-12 childhood, I felt most at home when I found a familiar place on campus where I could be myself with my friends. It may seem insignificant, but Pop-Tarts, Takis, and Tupperware homemade meals break down barriers between diverse student groups and contribute to the sense of connection that young people need and deserve. I’ve seen it happen.
