While some would argue that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, there’s no question that lunch is an important meal as well, especially during a student’s day at school. Not only does lunch give people the time to eat, but it also it gives the time to socialize with peers, and just take a break from work in general.

What some people don’t always think about is what teachers actually do during lunch. Well, similar to students, they eat, talk with other teachers, relax, etc. However, a group of teachers in the math department have created The Movie Club, where they spend time unwinding for a bit while also getting the chance to enjoy a show or movie to distract themselves from their work lives for a while.

“We started [The Movie Club] when Mr. McDonald hadn’t seen [‘Caddyshack’] a classic movie that everybody should see,” Matthew Hoevelmann said. “We decided that at lunch he was gonna watch ‘Caddyshack’, and ever since then it stuck, now that’s pretty much all we do at lunch.”

Even though students might imagine teachers using their lunch shift to collaborate on lectures and lesson planning, The Movie Club room prefers to stick to a specific rule of avoiding the topic of classes or students, and purely focusing on the show they are watching.

“The different rooms have different philosophies of how lunch should go,” Gary Schneider said. “This room likes to just sit here and be quiet; now the other room, they like to talk.”

All the members of The Movie Club enjoy getting to kick back and relax, not worrying about addition and subtraction for a while.

“It’s a good decompression, just to decompress from stress and not talking about school, students, or anything, it’s just chill and hang out and turn your brain off for a little while,” Rebecca Dillon said. “Having been a member of both rooms, the other room is like a normal conversation. We talk about life, we talk about school, people talk about their kids and what they’re doing this weekend, like a community conversation. Whereas in here, it’s very much like ‘we’re going to sit here and watch this movie together, but we’re not going to talk about anything else, we’re just turning our brains off to our jobs for a little bit.’ It’s a different feel, a different type of lunch.”

Continuing this tradition, The Movie Club resumes the show they are currently watching.

“It’s called ‘Bad Monkey’ on Apple TV, it’s a murder mystery,” Michael McDonald said.

Not everyone is very fond of the show they are currently watching, but they are still dedicated to completing it.

“Some people enjoy the show, and some people are waiting for it to get done,” Schneider said. “Mrs. Dillon and I are on the team of ‘we just want this to get over with.’”

Since the members of the club began this tradition in about 2016, they’ve surpassed 200 TV shows and movies that they have watched.

“We’re pretty die-hard,” Hoevelmann said. “We rarely do not finish something once we start it.”

The teachers reminisce on some of their favorite shows they have watched.

“‘How I Met Your Mother’ was a long stretch, but one of my top would be the last show we watched, ‘Presumed Innocent’, that was phenomenal,” Schneider said. “It had a good twist.”

Even though they have gained new members, there is still an old friend they are hoping will make a return.

“We wish Mr. Boedges would come back.” McDonald said. “He thought he was too cool for Movie Club.” Schneider said.

This story was originally published on EHS-Hub on November 13, 2024.