Lunch Date

The fifth hour bell rings, and one by one, the English teachers file into Kristin Anderson’s room, number 519, and settle into the desks the students occupied only seconds ago. Already, conversations start as the friend group unites for their daily lunches.

Erica Jackson cracks open her tangerine La Croix and Andy Gibbs grabs his Trader Joe’s granola bar. Anderson pulls her soup from the microwave; Melanie Miller pops open her tall blue bag of Pretzel Crisps and some JIF natural peanut butter.

“This is what happens when I don’t go to the grocery stores,” Miller jokes to Gibbs.

Today there are eight teachers gathered for lunch – gathered to relax, to tease, to talk. It’s their recess of sorts. They talk about anything and everything. They’ll vent, swap book recommendations — according to Gibbs, What is the What  by Dave Eggers is a good read — or give each other advice for school-related problems. Back when they had fewer classes to teach and thus less work, they even used to get lost in little activities like coloring or aromatherapy with towels and lavender-scented water.

It’s nothing extravagant. It’s not a super exclusive clique. It’s simply a space for the friends to get together and unwind.

“[All teachers are] welcome to come, obviously, and people fly in and out,” Sternberg said. “It is kind of nice in that regard because we don’t have to worry about trying to talk to each other in the hallways. We have a set place where we can all go talk. Sometimes it’s as simple as ‘I made a really good dinner last night, here’s what I did.’”

This room was where, two years ago, former teacher Laura Beachy-Langdon announced to the group she was expecting, and then let it slip that it was a girl. Or where the group threw a wedding shower for Sternberg. Or where they celebrated each other’s birthdays with cookies or cake.

This room is a chance for Samantha Feinberg to kick off her cheetah print flats and Anderson to lean back in her desk. At times the teachers’ voices pick up, and they can’t help talking over each other. Other times, the room softens and the only noise is the scratch of Anderson’s 7UP sliding on the plastic wood of her desk.

Along with the relaxation comes an opportunity to talk about the difficulties they run into in the classroom.

“I think we teach so much in isolation that this is a place [where] we [can] say ‘I have a problem, how would you handle it?’” Jackson said. “We help each other problem solve, then we obviously talk literature and share ideas and learn from each other.”

Their relationship extends beyond the classroom, and sometimes they’ll grab dinner together, such as on conference nights when they have to come back to school. It is simply a friendship.

They tease Sternberg for her habit of reading more than one book at a time – according to her, it prevents Alzheimer’s later in life. They laugh about the embarrassing things they’ve accidentally said in class. They talk about the TV shows they watched with their parents when they were younger, and Feinberg brings up her own children’s habits.

But once the clock ticks closer to 11:30, the room’s energy starts to slow down.

Voices outside the classroom get louder, and the group rises in one motion. Slowly, almost reluctantly, they slip out, first one, then another. Conversations die down, and Anderson packs up her food. By now the classroom is full of boisterous students, a completely different feel than the one calm gang just before had.

Until next time, room 519.