Why Do PD Presenters Keep Talking When Lunch Just Got Delivered? A Teacher’s Perspective
Last month, I sat through a district middle school literacy PD in our big downtown high school cafeteria. We’d been in our seats since 8 a.m., taking notes on new state standards and listening to examples of small-group reading rotations. My peppermint had worn out an hour earlier, my lower back was throbbing from the cheap folding chair, and by 11:58 I was checking my watch every 30 seconds. At 11:59, the double doors swung open, and two catering guys rolled in carts stacked with insulated foil pans and brown paper lunch bags. The smell of warm garlic bread hit the whole room at once, and every head turned. The presenter, a literacy coach from a neighboring district, never paused. She kept flipping through her slides, talking about scaffolding for English learners, even as the caterers plopped styrofoam boxes on tables right next to her and people scrambled to move their notebooks out of the way. I leaned over to the 8th grade teacher next to me and mouthed, “Seriously?” She just rolled her eyes and nodded.
For years I assumed this was just plain rudeness, that presenters love the sound of their own voice too much to notice a room full of hungry teachers staring at the lunch carts. But after chatting with half a dozen presenters who do this work regularly, I’ve learned there’s almost always a lot more going on than ego.
After that PD last month, I got iced coffee with the presenter, Sarah, after we wrapped up for the day, and I asked her straight out why she didn’t even pause when lunch showed up. She sighed and pulled up her scheduling email from the district on her phone. It said 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. morning session, 12:15 to 1 p.m. lunch, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. breakout groups. “If I stop 15 minutes early because lunch showed up 15 minutes early, admin sees that I didn’t cover all the content they paid me for,” she said. “I get rated poorly on the post-survey, and they don’t hire me back next year.” She told me she tried pausing once, three years ago, when lunch showed up 10 minutes early. She let everyone go get their food early, figured everyone would appreciate it. Half the teachers left to get gas or pick up coffee from the shop down the street, and 15 people never came back for the last 20 minutes of her session. She got an email from the district coordinator asking why she’d fallen so far behind schedule.
A lot of the time, presenters also think they’re doing the audience a favor. The logic goes: if I talk through the 10 minutes while caterers set up and lunch gets distributed, we end right on time, and everyone gets their full 45 or 60 minutes to eat, instead of cutting the session short and chopping 10 minutes off your break. It makes total sense from the presenter’s side, but from the audience’s side, you’re just sitting there watching your grilled cheese get cold while you listen to a recap of points you already wrote down. It’s a simple misalignment of priorities: presenters are graded on content coverage, not audience comfort, so they default to keeping talking.
The good news is there are tiny, low-friction changes that fix most of this frustration, no big meeting or policy overhauls required. If you’re a teacher sitting in the audience, you don’t have to wait for permission to get your food. Last week I was at a special education PD, lunch showed up 12 minutes early, and the presenter just kept going. I quietly closed my notebook, stood up, slipped past the other chairs to the lunch table, got my salad and cookie, and walked back. No one said anything. Two other people got up after me, then a whole table went. By the time the presenter wrapped up 7 minutes later, half the room was already eating. If you’re nervous about being rude, just mumble “excuse me” as you pass, that’s it. You don’t have to cause a scene, you just don’t have to sit hungry waiting for an unspoken rule to be followed.
If you’re a presenter, there’s one short line you can say the second you see the caterers roll in that fixes everything: “Looks like lunch is here early! I’ve got 7 minutes left to wrap up, so feel free to get your food now and eat while I finish. No need to wait for me.” I did a PD for new teachers at my school last month, and the office brought lunch in 10 minutes early. I said that exact line, half the people got their food, everyone relaxed, I wrapped up right on schedule, and no one left hangry. It takes 10 seconds to say, and it eliminates all the awkward tension.
If you’re an admin scheduling PD, just build 10 minutes of buffer into the morning block, and tell presenters upfront that it’s totally fine to end 5 or 10 minutes early if lunch arrives ahead of schedule. You don’t have to cut pay or penalize anyone for covering 90% of the content if it means everyone gets to eat while their food is warm. That tiny change doesn’t cost anything, and it makes the whole day better.
I still get annoyed when I’m sitting there, my stomach growling so loud the person next to me can hear it, while a presenter drags out their last 10 slides. Last week my chocolate chip cookie got warm under my notebook, and I still complained about it over text to my teacher friend after the PD. I still think it’s a silly unspoken norm that doesn’t need to exist. But I stopped taking it personally, now that I know what’s going on behind the scenes. I keep a granola bar in my PD bag now, just in case, and I don’t hesitate to get up and get my food if it’s there. It’s not a big revolution, just a small change that makes a long day of sitting through professional development a little less miserable.
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