Teachers' Lounge Podcast

At the end of this past school year, Tracy found herself strutting down the hallway, wearing a sash and a crown, as kids held up homemade signs and mobbed her with hugs.She was retiring after 30 years as an elementary school teacher in her hometown of DeKalb.

On a new Teachers' Lounge Radio Show, we follow a group of high school students starting their own small businesses. We also chat with two Illinois teachers trying to recruit the next generation of educators. Hear those conversations and more!

We’re revisiting our lovely 2024 conversation with Cacie Miller! She's a music instructor at College DuPage, director of music at United Lutheran Church in Oak Park, and creator of the musical project 'Composing the Climate.'

You might think you want to be a teacher until you come face to face with 30 kids."There's nothing worse than getting to your junior year of college, being placed in your first observation, and going, 'I hate second graders.'"We talk with the teachers who lead the Southern Illinois Future Teachers Coalition about giving students early opportunities to see if the career's for them … and recruiting the next generation of teachers.

Every year, we bring you our classroom correspondents. They’re a group of students in a club or activity whom we interview every month through their season or semester!Over the years, we've featured an upstart esports team, a speech club, a school play and, this past fall, a student newspaper. This spring, our correspondents were students in the Whiteside Area Career Center's CEO Program, where they built their own small businesses from scratch!

Every year here on Teachers' Lounge, we feature a "classroom correspondent" — a teacher we interview every single month to follow a school year in their life.

Ever curious what the school year is like for a teacher? We interviewed DeKalb middle school English as a Second Language teacher Caio Gomes every month to track a school year in his life. Follow his journey on a new Teachers' Lounge podcast!

On a new podcast, we talk with one of the few special education teachers who were special education students themselves. Hear a young Illinois educator’s unique path into the classroom!

It's the end of the school year and our last conversation with the teacher we've interviewed every single month! Say goodbye to our teacher and student correspondents here on a new Teachers' Lounge radio show.

We're revisiting our 2024 conversation with Joseph Flynn. He's an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Northern Illinois University. He's also the university’s executive director of equity and inclusion.