The teacher’s lounge.
There are few other rooms in a school building that probably evoke the range of feelings as that particular location. The apportioned-off grazing zone for the teacher species. Some sitting in dazed solitude, others coming in for that quick faculty-bathroom run and yet others finding a place to sit in communal (and at times, necessary) disagreeableness.
The ones I’ve seen range from being cramped little spaces–enlarged closets, really–and others cavernously large (I’ve seen one the size of a cafeteria populated by a sad looking futon from someone’s college dorm days on one side of the cavern and the other with two small tables with the four or five mismatched hard chairs forlornly waiting nearby). Pretty much all of them though can be identified by the rushed and abandoned nature of the places–the thrice folded newspaper from the previous week, the mostly empty cabinets serving as habitat for the odd collection of random school things (looking for a broken stapler, four packs of coffee stirrers or a toner cartridge for a printer that hasn’t been manufactured in ten years? You’re at the right place..), and the omnipresent scattering of coffee cups here and there (with the really special ones rimmed with brown liquid stains, like high water marks against their porcelein sides.)
What a pleasant surprise in a new school building I visited this morning then, to meet a group of eight to ten teachers who appeared seemingly at once for their lunch break–at a little before 10:30, mind you. Quick introduction of who I was, and then warm welcomes all around. Felt good.
Feeling the Vibes in the Teacher’s Lounge
The teacher’s lounge.
There are few other rooms in a school building that probably evoke the range of feelings as that particular location. The apportioned-off grazing zone for the teacher species. Some sitting in dazed solitude, others coming in for that quick faculty-bathroom run and yet others finding a place to sit in communal (and at times, necessary) disagreeableness.
The ones I’ve seen range from being cramped little spaces–enlarged closets, really–and others cavernously large (I’ve seen one the size of a cafeteria populated by a sad looking futon from someone’s college dorm days on one side of the cavern and the other with two small tables with the four or five mismatched hard chairs forlornly waiting nearby). Pretty much all of them though can be identified by the rushed and abandoned nature of the places–the thrice folded newspaper from the previous week, the mostly empty cabinets serving as habitat for the odd collection of random school things (looking for a broken stapler, four packs of coffee stirrers or a toner cartridge for a printer that hasn’t been manufactured in ten years? You’re at the right place..), and the omnipresent scattering of coffee cups here and there (with the really special ones rimmed with brown liquid stains, like high water marks against their porcelein sides.)
What a pleasant surprise in a new school building I visited this morning then, to meet a group of eight to ten teachers who appeared seemingly at once for their lunch break–at a little before 10:30, mind you. Quick introduction of who I was, and then warm welcomes all around. Felt good.