The Inexorable Awkwardness of the High School Cafeteria

(Based on a tweet by Dan Fuchs)

Anyone who knows anything about high school administrators knows that lunch duty is a part of their job. You stand in the cafeteria and don't do much of anything, other than provide an adult presence, and maybe a sense of safety for those young people who find being in a gigantic, noisy room with 700 of their peers a bit intimidating. Occasionally you correct naughty behavior. Once in a great while, you prevent a fight from happening or escalating.

I actually don't mind my time in the cafeteria, each day from 12:45 to 2. In fact, it's kind of a nice break in the action, and I get to have good interactions with our students. I have good fun with them, like pretending I'm a waiter, either just after they sit down ("Good afternoon, ladies. Has anyone told you about our specials today?") or as they linger after the first bell has rung ("How was everything here, all right? Can you get you anything else? Coffee? Desert?") My experience brings the script right back, and there's always a moment where they're not quite sure what-all is going on. Then I let them off the hook, and tell them -- in the latter case -- to get to class. I even taught my "family handshake" -- the one I invented with my two young sons' help -- to a couple of kids.

There are a few features that make our lunchroom feel a bit less like a prison commissary (than say Evander Childs Campus, where I had my last AP Job). For one thing, there's a Java City at the south end of the room, where kids can sit and sip on a latte, a little removed from the din of the rest of place. Also, the chairs are individual and can be picked up and moved, which they are, daily.

As a result, you get the big, over-populated (and invariably LOUD) tables full of popular kids -- either the jocks, or the artists, or the skate geeks. There are a few tables that stand out -- the one with the very mature students who eat, calmly chatting, as though they're in a quiet Bistro somewhere, the singletons, who prefer to read a book as they eat, and the "Loud Nerds" table, where artsy kids need to continue their self-expression through primal scream therapy. The fumbling search for identity is undeniable, as these young ones figure out how they fit into this microcosm of an even more confusing world, just outside our doors.