The Importance of the Humble Staffroom in Schools
OK, so you can’t smoke in the staffroom any more – but it’s still a very special and important space for teachers, says Tom Starkey…
- by Tom Starkey
I like staffrooms. They can be theatres of laughter and drama or the locale for epic battles, and they provide a space for non-child-friendly humour in an otherwise stress-filled school day.
My very first staff room even had an adjacent staffroom for the smokers. SMOKERS. IN A SCHOOL. Now that’s looking after your staff’s wellbeing. None of that yoga and ‘Cake Wednesdays’ shenanigans. Having a bad day? Get yourself in there and mainline some nicotine! That’ll sort you out. (And it did.)
But before I go off on an extended ramble about the glorious lack of care regarding teachers’ lung capacity and chances of long term illness back in the day (and the very high likelihood that I might have to stop typing this out to go out and have a cheeky fag out back now that I’ve started talking about that sweet, sweet smoke), let me get back on topic.
When it comes to staffrooms, for me, one of the most important things that they represent is a space away from the kids.
Now, not everyone thinks like this. There are some with beautiful souls who want to spend every minute in the company of those they teach, and I’ve no problem with that.
School is a community and that community being together at times such as lunch would undoubtedly do a lot to cement relationships and signal that the school is about everyone. However, I’m not built like that.
Although it’s true that I like to mouth off at a moment’s notice given half a chance, when I wasn’t in front of a class doing my variety skit on the nuance of language in whatever, I found being ‘always on’ incredibly draining.
It’s an issue that doesn’t come up much in conversations regarding teaching – that when you work in a school, because of the young people you are around and the expectations they, other stakeholders, and society in general have, there’s always an element of performance.
Not just in the classrooms, but in offices, down corridors, during assemblies, on trips – a particular type of demeanour has to be maintained. We model what we want the kids to see as they look to us, and a lot of the time it is challenging.
So, for me, the staffroom represented an oasis of self. It was a place where I could shed the role of teacher for a precious half hour or so, regroup, and become myself.
In such a relentless job as teaching can be, that time in the staffroom allowed me to steady myself and my mind in an environment where lots of other people were doing the same.
Allocating space in an educational establishment for teachers to do this is incredibly important, and it worries me, when talking to current teachers, that the staffroom seems to be slowly becoming a thing of the past.
Not only because this removes a space of recuperation that I suspect is essential in the lives of many professionals, but also because staffrooms act as a communication hub.
They’re a place where disparate individuals and teams can meet and chat – and the cynic in me suspects that there are those in schools who see that as something of a threat. People are often a lot easier to dictate to when they’re not in a group – there’s always less strength when the numbers aren’t there.
But let me take my tinfoil hat off for a bit. Yes, staffrooms mean that you may have to come into contact with Sarah from drama, and it hurts to follow all her gesticulations.
Yes, the milk war between the English dept and science has been raging for months now and has reached a level of passive-aggressiveness which has resulted in various two-pint cartons looking like a graffiti wall of drywipe marker.
Yes, if Shane does yet another impromptu announcement about his sponsored bike ride you may well go outside and nick his wheels, and yes there are coffee circles on every single notice on the notice board… but even through the grime and anxiety, the staffroom is still, for many, a place of retreat.
For me, having that was something that kept me going. I love the performance, but even performers have the curtain come down on them during the interval.
Right, I’m off to smoke.
Tom Starkey is a teacher and writer who blogs at stackofmarking.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tstarkey1212.
