Students love to use the excuse “I have a life outside of school and teachers do not understand that”. But what about the teachers? What do they do outside of their 8-3 day job? Six teachers were interviewed to figure out “The Secret Life of an American Teacher”.

As expected, most teachers were busy with their children. Mrs.Skorupa even described herself as a “full time mom of three kids”. Mr.Brooks said he spends most of his time taking care of his son and daughter, 17 and 2 respectively.

Besides just their home life, teachers are involved with many other things outside of school. Half of the teachers interviewed were coaches of some sort, typically related to LNE in a way. Others mostly spent their time volunteering. Mr. Grothen is a professor at Doane College and he helps tutor high school and college level students.

One of the things I was most curious about was whether it was awkward or not to see students outside of school. All six of the teachers interviewed said no and gave various for why it is not. Most of them answered saying it seemed to be more awkward for the student. Mr.Brooks even included a funny story, “I was at Gateway shopping when two former students came out of Victoria’s Secret. It was great for about 10 seconds until it dawned on us all where we were standing”.  Other than that one incident Brooks said it was not awkward at all to run into students.
Lastly, believe it or not, teachers actually spend time together outside of school. They celebrate birthdays, have “Fun Food Fridays” (according to Skorupa), holiday parties, and other fun get togethers. The english department even has a “dip off” where everyone brings a dip and the rest of the teachers vote on the sweetest dip, the savoriest dip, or the best presentation. The social studies department also has their tradition of spending time coordinating how to crash the English department’s party to steal their dip.