Dan Shutes, an educator from Paw Paw, Michigan, has a distinctive luncheon routine: he brings chicken and rice every day. He then eats it in the cafeteria with his students.

Shutes spends almost every afternoon in the lunchroom with his 5th-grade students and the other 5th graders at his school. The 32-year-old has been teaching for about 11 years, starting the tradition a few years ago.

“I didn’t anticipate a group of youngsters to ask, ‘Hey, can you eat lunch with me tomorrow?’ or ‘Can you eat lunch with me the next day?’ But that’s how things have been,” Shutes tells people exclusively. “I have lunch at the cafeteria three to four times each week. It’s something I like and has become a part of my routine, particularly at the start of the year.”

“It is a priority for me. I believe it’s a simple method to get to know your pupils beyond their names and test results from the previous year,” he adds.

During lunch, Shutes’ class is divided into three tables. Each day, he moves from table to table, occasionally stopping by his teaching partner’s class to dine with them.

“Sometimes, students from other classes that I don’t actually teach will ask if they can sit with me, and I try to find time to do that too,” he claims. “Whether they’re siblings of former students or I’ve just seen them in passing and gotten to know them over time, it’s nice to connect with kids who aren’t in my classes but who I see every morning as they walk down the hallway.”

Shutes recently shared a video on TikTok describing his lunchtime ritual, which has received 380,000 views and 1,600 comments. He is pleased to learn that he is motivating instructors in other states and even around the world to eat lunch with their children.

“Of course, you do notice some bad statements. “I suppose it’s a good reminder that there will always be people who disagree or have an issue with what you’re doing,” he adds. “Overall, it’s been great, and I’m grateful to have a platform that allows my film to reach so many people. The favorable feedback is really lovely to hear.”

@danshutes It’s all about making our students feel important… #teacher #teachersoftiktok #teacherlife #school #students #fyp ♬ Night Trouble – Petit Biscuit

“I have kids come back and say hello, or greet me at football games or in the grocery store when they see me,” adds the dad. “I also see students who start the school year as a bit shy or reserved, and if eating lunch with them helps them come out of their shell or grow more confident, then that small act of simply sharing lunch can end up being quite significant by the end of the year.”

“So if I were to distill this into one central message, it would be this: teachers, educators, and coaches shouldn’t underestimate the impact of the little things—the small deeds we do for our students,” according to him. “They often appreciate these gestures far more than we realize.”

Shutes has many happy recollections of dining at the cafeteria, but one stands out the most. Last year, during the first or second week of school, he was traveling between lunch tables with his chicken and rice when his thin paper plate broke.

“It landed on top of one of my brand-new students. We’d been in school for about a week, and I was humiliated,” he adds. “I realized, ‘Oh no, I just dumped my lunch all over this poor girl!'” But she handled it admirably and was a wonderful sport. Of course, everyone around us was laughing, and despite my embarrassment, we laughed it off. It became something we laughed about for the remainder of the school year.”