I’ve started letting my students bring Munchkins and other snacks on Fridays. I provide fresh-roasted coffee (and hot chocolate for the non-coffee-drinkers). We call it “chem coffeehouse”. We still do classwork, but in a much more informal setting. The kids love it. (These are all AP and honors students, so they’re pretty good about not making a mess.)
I mentioned this to my department head. (Note that food & drink other than bottled water are prohibited by school rules.) She likes the idea. Her comment: the kids are going to have to get used to studying & learning in more informal settings in college. It’s good to start getting them used to the idea in high school. Otherwise, they get so much freedom all at once that some of them have trouble dealing with it and end up doing very badly their freshman year. However, she did advise me to do what I can to keep the rest of the administration from noticing to the point where they’d have to ask me to stop.
This is one of the many reasons I like working for her.
