Loners

leadership students, who make sure that nobody eats alone who doesn't want to. If someone is by themselves in the cafeteria, they will sit and eat and chat with them, get to know them, and help them connect with others if they need that.

I also have some students, introverts who NEED down time, who eat lunch in my room so that they don't HAVE to interact. They choose. They'd rather sit in my room with a few others around the room than in a crowded, noisy cafeteria.

Both of those needs...to be accepted by people, to make friends, AND to be alone, are served, and should be. People sitting by themselves in the cafeteria aren't always by themselves because they are introverts. For some, it can be an excruciating, isolating, exclusionary experience that they dread each day.

It's easier to provide for both of those needs in my small, community-oriented school than it is in big industrial-sized schools.