Get out of your room at lunch
You have no idea what gets decided in the teacher's lounge — or in the line for the bathroom.
With Tammy Striler · 1:55 · Filmed fall 2020
What to take away
- Sometimes you'll agree to disagree — and you still get to run your classroom your way.
- Build relationships with colleagues you can share ideas with and learn from.
- When you're overwhelmed at lunchtime, that's exactly when you should leave the room, not stay in it.
- In thirty minutes you weren't going to get much done anyway. Be part of the culture instead.
Why it works
The instinct when you're drowning is to shut the door and grade. Tammy's argument is that the half hour buys you far more as a conversation than as work — the lounge is where you find out what's happening, and where you learn you're not the only one struggling.
Tammy Striler
Founder · classroom teacher
Thirty years in the classroom, most of them with the door open and a student teacher in the back. Tammy started these tips because the best things she learned came from other teachers over lunch, and nobody was writing them down.
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