Why Do Professional Development Presenters Keep Talking When Lunch Just Got Delivered? A Teacher’s Perspective
The lunch carts clattered into the high school library just after 11:30, their wheels squeaking loud enough to cut through the presenter’s explanation of new grading guidelines. The smell of warm roast beef sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies drifted over the rows of folding tables, and every head in the room turned. I shifted my cramping legs, my stomach growling so loud the PE teacher next to me snickered. The presenter, a woman from the curriculum company who’d flown in overnight, never paused. She flipped to the next slide, kept pointing to bullet points about student progress tracking, and acted like 50 starving teachers weren’t already mentally unpacking their lunch boxes.
I crossed my arms and stared. I’d been there since 8 a.m., drank too much bad coffee, and my only break that morning was 5 minutes to run to the bathroom. Why do they do this? I texted a friend across the room. Can she not see the literal food? Is she actually not human?
She finally wrapped up 20 minutes later, and by the time I got my sandwich, the bread was soggy and the cheese was cold. I ate it complaining to the teacher next to me, but that night on the drive home, I caught myself thinking about Tuesday that week, in my own 6th grade classroom. We were working through a practice state test question, I was halfway through explaining how to pull evidence from a text, when the lunch bell rang. The cafeteria line started moving past my door, every kid in the room turned to stare at the hallway, and I kept talking. I said “just two more minutes, guys, we have to lock this in before you leave, or you’ll forget it by Monday.” I even kept going when I saw Lila, my quiet kid who hates asking to leave, bouncing in her seat crossing her legs. I knew she had to pee, but I was locked into my plan. I had to get through this one example before lunch, or I’d throw off my whole week’s schedule.
That’s when it clicked. This isn’t some weird quirk only PD presenters have. It’s the same thing I do in my classroom, the same thing I do at home with my 10 year old. Last weekend, we were building his pinewood derby car, we only had an hour before swim practice, and he said he was hungry enough to eat a whole box of crackers. I said “just 5 more minutes, bud, we need to get the glue on the wheels before it dries.” I kept going even when he started slumping over the table, getting cranky, and we ended up fighting anyway because he knocked over the glue bottle. We were both late to practice, and we didn’t even finish the car that day.
PD presenters don’t keep talking because they don’t see the lunch. Almost always, they do. Most of the time, they’ve got a hard deadline to hit. They’re paid by the district to cover all 10 modules of the new framework, we need all those hours to keep our teaching licenses, and if they stop early, no one gets what they came for. But the bigger reason is the same for all of us: when you’re focused on the plan you made, your brain filters out everything that doesn’t fit that plan. You don’t mean to ignore the obvious cues, you’re just busy checking boxes. It’s not rudeness, it’s just how our brains work when we’ve got something we’re trying to get done.
After that PD day, I started testing small changes to keep from falling into that same trap, and they’ve worked for me both in the classroom and at home. First, I set a timer on my watch to go off every 20 minutes when I’m leading anything, whether it’s a lesson or a craft project with my kid. When the timer goes off, I just pause for 10 seconds and look around. I don’t have to make a big deal out of it, I just check for cues: are people staring at the door? Is my kid bouncing? Is anyone yawning so wide their jaw cracks? If I see anything, I just say “anybody need a two minute break before we keep going?” That’s it. It takes 30 seconds, it doesn’t derail anything, and it reminds me to look up from my notes or my plan.
Second, if I see a big obvious cue, I just pause immediately. I don’t try to finish “just one more point.” A PD presenter could have stopped mid-sentence when the lunch carts rolled in, said “looks like lunch is here, let’s take 15 minutes to eat and we’ll pick back up on slide 12” and that would have taken 10 seconds. We would have all been way more focused after that, instead of spending 20 minutes half-listening while we waited to eat. I tried this last week: I was mid-lesson when the lunch bell rang, and I saw Lila bouncing again. I just shut my laptop and said “okay, we’re done for today, let’s go eat. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.” No one complained, I didn’t have to re-teach anything, and Lila made it to the bathroom on time.
Third, I build an extra 10 minutes of buffer into every plan I make, whether it’s a 90 minute lesson or a 2 hour weekend project. That way, I don’t feel like I have to cram every second full. If we need a 5 minute break for snacks or the bathroom, it doesn’t throw off the whole timeline.
I still catch myself doing it, honestly. Three nights ago, I was reading a bedtime story to my son, he said he was tired and wanted to turn the light out, and I said “just one more chapter, it’s the good part.” I caught myself halfway through the first paragraph, paused, and said “you know what? You’re right. Let’s finish it tomorrow.” It’s not about never getting locked into your plan again. It’s just about remembering that other people’s needs don’t pause just because your agenda is running. That PD presenter didn’t mean to be rude, she was just doing the same thing all of us do, every single day. Small pauses, small checks, that’s all it takes to fix it most of the time.
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