Teachers' Lounge

Every semester, we feature a new group of "student correspondents." They're students in a club, sport, or activity. We interview them every month and bring you their journey. This fall, we highlighted the reporters and editors at Kaneland High School's student-run magazine "The Kaneland Krier" as they raced against their deadlines.

Before we get too far into 2026, let's take one more look back at some of our best education stories we reported in 2025.

We say goodbye to our student correspondents from Kaneland High School, have a holiday check-in with the teacher we interview every month, and look back at a few of our favorite conversations of 2025.

On a new Teachers' Lounge, we're revisiting a few of our favorite education conversations of 2025 as we finish up the year.

On a new Teachers’ Lounge Podcast, an Ottawa High School special education teacher helping her students transition to college…from knowing their rights to picking their classes.

On a brand-new Teachers’ Lounge, WNIJ’s Peter Medlin talks with music teacher Ann Smelser from NIU’s Community School of the Arts. He chats about education policy with Crystal Lake Central High School special education teacher Bob Chikos.And he catches up with our monthly teacher correspondent Caio Gomes from Clinton-Rosette Middle School in DeKalb, as well as our student correspondents from Kaneland High School’s student-run news magazine, the Kaneland Krier!

On Teachers’ Lounge, it's Ann Montzka Smelser.She's the Director of the Suzuki Strings Program at Northern Illinois University.Ann’s a practitioner of what’s called “the Suzuki method of music learning.” It’s based on the idea that music talent isn’t inherent, it’s something that’s nurtured through positive encouragement.

On a new Teachers' Lounge, Bob Chikos! He’s a special education teacher at Crystal Lake Central High School.He's involved in education policy at the state level, working on reports about the teacher pipeline and school psychologist shortages.Bob also recently took a fascinating trip around Illinois

On a new show, we talk with our classroom correspondent about immigration anxiety in English as a Second Language classrooms, catch up with students from Kaneland High School’s student-run news magazine, and bring you even more education stories and conversations.

We're revisiting our 2022 chat with Princeton middle school social studies teacher David Gray.He and his students worked on a project called “The Four Freedoms & Beyond," based on President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union speech just before the U.S. entered World War II.