5 Teacher Friends You Need in Your Teaching Tribe – The Gifted Gabber

The sisterhood of teacher friends runs strong. We’re a tight group. When our sanity is tested over and over each day by people who were born in the current millennium, it’s reassuring to know just down the hall multiple others are feeling about as wacked as we are.

In anticipation of the upcoming school year, I’ve thought about the five teacher friends we all need to have in our teaching tribe.

The 5 Teacher Friends You Need in Your Teaching Tribe

1) The Organized Hoarder 

This is the friend you run to every time that dang Expo bottle is empty (already?). Or your month-old stapler is already on the fritz. Or for the mini Snickers bars she keeps stashed in the third drawer to the right of her desk. In your personal life, she is the friend you can call when you need to borrow a cute little chalkboard for a baby shower you are planning. Seriously, if you think she is an organized hoarder in the classroom, you should see her garage.

2) The Party Pal/Social Butterfly Friend

This friend is the one who keeps you in stitches on hall duty and during the totally inappropriate appropriate stories she shares at lunch and when she isn’t supposed to be talking at professional development training. (Although you will be tempted every time, you probably should not sit by this teacher friend at any trainings.) She loves to get together for some teaching tribe fun outside of school. The more the merrier is her mantra. This friend doesn’t really have an interest in talking school much at any time – in the halls or when out for Mexican.

3) The Diligent Teacher 

This is the teacher friend who actually listens and takes notes during professional development. Since you most likely won’t listen to 75% of what is said during PD, you need a trusty listener friend. (This is the teacher friend you need to sit by at inservice. You won’t get into trouble sitting beside this one.) You know, she’s someone you can send an instant message or quick email to when you have 10 minutes to turn in some “extremely important” documentation into the office. She saves you, once again, from admitting to the office staff or the administration that you have no earthly idea what they are talking about. Truly, you admire this person’s diligence and seriousness about her profession. Her qualities are what most teachers strive to have, but many of us just don’t measure up.

4) The Rebel

No doubt, this person is the yin-to-the-yang of #3. Maybe she isn’t someone you actually need to model yourself after currently, but you wish you could be her. Her ability to blow off instructions and deadlines meets you with an intriguing envy. The rebel is kind of a rock star to all of her teacher friends. They admire her five-year-plan, which she is happy to outline to anyone who asks. Her five-year-plan means she blows off new policy/new procedures/new educational agendas the first two years. By the third year, she starts to listen and becomes a bit more serious, fearing the new policy might actually stick. By the fourth year (a rare occurrence for an educational movement to still be around after four years in most districts, as you probably know), she starts to implement a few things here and there. IF this policy is still around by year five, she has it down to a fine art and manages it like a pro. If only you could be a rebel like her. Her laid-back attitude stands out when every other teacher in the building is stressed to the max. The rebel is likely a teacher with many years of experience and wisdom, and she enjoys mentoring younger teachers, for better or for worse. Occasionally, you may come across a younger rebel teacher within a teaching tribe.

5) The Mirror Friend

Whether this teacher friend is single and ready to mingle, married with young kids, married with no kids, single with grown kids, etc., her situation closely mimics your own. This is a friend who will truly empathize with whatever you are going through – working mom guilt, family stomach flu havoc, b-a-d toddler behavior, another bad date, another month of no dates, crazy teenager extracurricular schedule, empty nest syndrome, etc. Whatever it is, this teacher friend gets it. Plus, you need someone to hang with on summer break when all your non teacher friends are working. If this friend’s situation matches your own, your schedules are much more likely to line up, and you will have a shopping, brunching, play dating pal every break. 

*For simplicity sake, I spoke of all the teacher friends with the “she” pronoun. However, these 5 types of teacher friends are the same for male teachers.

Well, do you have at least one of all of the teaching tribe members on this list? And what about you? Which teacher friend are you?

Linking up this post on teacher friends at these link ups: