"Adults, people with families, people with jobs: lifelong learning happens well beyond this discrete moment in your life when you're 18-20 years old. And people can reap the benefits of continuing education and furthering their certifications and degrees and experiences for their entire lives," Illinois Valley Community College instructor Delores Robinson.

WNIJ's Peter Medlin takes a trip back to his hometown to talk to a P.E. teacher who he helped teach with nearly 10 years ago.

“One of the questions I learned to ask early in my career as an educator is, was my experience, maybe not everybody's experience, or was it?"

We're reflecting on speeches from the Class of 2020 as we near the 4th school year impacted by the pandemic.

“I was really terrified this year, this was my first year to put it where you say you got it,” she said. “I don't know for sure that meaningful, relational, creative learning yields test results. I know that people of my belief in academia say that. I know there's a lot of literature that says that, but you don't know you’re going to get that.”

Rachel joins Teachers' Lounge after a busy few months between getting a Master’s Degree, securing her first full-time teaching job, and finishing up student teaching AT HER OLD HIGH SCHOOL!

Our classroom correspondent tells the story of his school year – a year in the life of a teacher -- the ups and downs, holidays, tests, all of it. It's a month-by-month trip through the 2021-22 school year.

"When I started teaching, as a teacher, you were extremely isolated. You were closed in this room with them. In my second year of teaching, I had 50 3rd graders!"

Destiny Hudson was in 5th grade when COVID-19 shut down schools back in 2020. Now, she’s finishing up 7th Grade. Devin Snow was a sophomore when it all went down and now he’s graduating high school. They’ve both been through this weird learning experience, but at very different points in their education journey.

The 2022 Illinois Teacher of the Year joins Teachers' Lounge to talk about what it means to her, being a small-town educator, teaching new languages, and much more!