Short answer. Yes.

Long answer. It’s complicated. There are pros and cons to eating in your schools faculty lunch room. Lets look at them

Pros:

1. You get to debrief with colleagues about your day and be surrounded by people who have roughly the same intellect and thirst for conversation that is NOT about One Direction.
2. There is usually a couch. If you are tired, you can take a 15 minutes power nap and no one will say boo about it.
3. There are no kids. Sometimes no matter how much you love working with students, you just need a few minutes without them around.
4. There is usually an unending, magically replenishing mound of wonderfully delicious home cooked food that you would never be able to recreate at home with your stocked pantry of Ramen Noodles… oh, and there is a snack machine!
5. Some of the most interesting ideas from other teachers can be learned and adapted for use in your classroom.

Cons:

1. That wonderful debrief session I mentioned above often descends into a bitch session about someone you know in the school.
2. Gossip Mongering
3. There is always that teacher that you can’t stand. You think they are the world’s worst teacher but they always seem to carry themselves like they are the greatest teacher since John Dewey…
4. Sometimes you realize that the people in there are thinking that same terrible thought about you as you walk through the door.
5. There is a never ending stack of delicious home cooked food that you would never be able to recreate at home. . .and you have absolutely no will power to put down that 1000 calories of homemade chocolate chip, caramel, raisin heaven.

Even after weighing the pros and cons of the lunch room, I want to be in a place where my colleagues are encouraged to challenge my thinking about almost any issue under the sun and I hope they think that way, too. I would rather have a thought provoking conversation with someone who hates my guts but treats me as a professional.

It is a fortress of solitude away from the students that is protected with a wonderful little sign that say “NO STUDENTS ALLOWED”.

Sometimes you just need that little bit of separation.