Let's pretend you and your best friend have been hired at the same place...I know way to go HR you just lowered your company's productivity by 95% but just go with it for a minute. You are not actually in the same area but at least, squee!, there is lunch to look forward to! You work all morning and then finally both hit the lunchroom at the SAME time! I know. I know. You start gabbing away about your morning, your kids, something you pinned recently, etc. then out of the blue someone approaches you and tells you your time to talk is over. Now you may have been pretty quiet all morning but then you had some pretty challenging, stimulating work to do. It doesn't take much effort or many brain cells to chew your sandwich. So you sit. In silence. Next to your best friend.
Does this sound familiar? Probably not unless you are one of the millions of American school kids who are required to spend all or a portion of their lunch time in silence. I currently work in a cafeteria (for the second time) in a public school in the good old U.S. and while the cafeteria I work in is one of the best I have seen it still has room for improvement! Below are three suggestions I have for lunchrooms across America. With just a little thought and planning I believe that we (parents, administrators, and aides) can turn lunch time into one of the best parts of the day for the kids and for the adults!
1) Why do the kids need to be quiet? Is lunchtime a break or not? These are the first questions administrators and aides need to ask themselves. What I come up with is a) So they can hear instructions b) so that others can get their lunches in a timely and efficient manner. This means that talk can be permitted at a low rumble 80%-95% of the time. Be sure to come up with your own reasons and address them appropriately without over doing it. Try to figure out how you can make it a break for them and still accomplish what you need to. Write out a schedule of times when they would need to be quiet and times they can talk and then clearly communicate it to the kids.
2) Set a time limit on Quiet time. One of the most aggravating things is when kids start out quiet and then slowly the talking builds to a roar. Adults are screaming,"It is still QUIET TIME!!!" "She just told you to be quiet! Why is your mouth open?" etc. Adults are frustrated, kids are nervous or out of control (depending on their personality type), there are literally so many kids talking it is impossible to discipline them all. I have found a good gauge of whether or not what you are asking is attainable is whether or not the obeyers can accomplish it. If even the "good" kids are talking you are asking too much. While you might have a definite time in mind for silence the kids have no idea how long they will be expected to be quiet which makes it really difficult for them to restrain themselves.
Here's an example of one way that setting a time limit can help.
Adult: Okay 1st graders, here come the kindergartners! That is our signal to be quiet for 5 minutes (while they get their food so that the lunch line staff can hear them). You may want to use a timer or tell them where the hands on the clock will be when quiet time is over.
3) Last but not least try silent signals.
-When I was the childrens' music director for our congregation someone had come up with something called the Primary 5. When the kids were getting too boisterous all I had to do was raise my hand. They would respond by raising their hands and closing their mouths. It often rippled across the room as first the attentive children and then the less attentive children and finally the rabble rousers :) noticed. If they didn't hear or see me asking for quiet they quickly saw their friends asking for it. We often practiced how quickly we could get the room completely silent. They loved trying to get faster and faster. I would put my hand at my side like it was in a holster and they would pretend to talk and then I would raise my hand as fast as I could.
-Another silent signal is laminated circles in red or green. As you walk around during your (SHORT) quiet time you drop a green on tables that are doing great at being quiet and a red on tables that aren't. The table needs to try to get there light to green by the end of the quiet time or there are consequences (just for those who are talking not for the whole table. One effective consequence is getting dismissed first if your table was the quietest or most obedient. Let tables go to recess starting with the quietest and see how quiet that room gets!)
-Google Cafeteria management or Lunchroom Management- Lots of schools have shared their great ideas and solutions to the problems you are having!
One last thing, if your staff does not like children or does not have the nerves to handle them talking you have two options- ask them to seek other employment or spend some time educating them on developmentally appropriate expectations for the age group they are working with. This education should extend to security guards, lunch line staff, lunch aides, basically anyone who comes in contact with the kids. Our expectations needed to be tempered with understanding or we are just kicking against the pricks and raising our blood pressures (and making kids miserable) for no reason!
Please share this post, print it and give to your principal or lunch staff, email it to other parents and friends! Together we can better U.S. schools as long as we are all willing to do our parts instead of just hating it but not doing anything about it. Thanks for the read!!
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