You must be the man with all the power...

It seems as if the school year is flying by, but there is still so much left to do. October brings the great sensation homecoming, orange, brown, and yellow leaves, colder weather and of course parent teacher conferences. This is the time of year when teachers "dress up" when they come to school apparently to show the parents "Look at me, I'm a professional" this may sound a bit cynical but....oh well. This thought actually came about as I was typing and trying to introduce the real reason I got on here, but I the two thoughts tie together.

This morning as I was making some last minute copies for the day, I walked into the teachers lounge, an older man was sitting at one of the tables, I had never seen him before. I said "good morning" and he responded with the same. He then went on to say "White shirt and tie. You must be the man with all the power." I jokingly said "Only in my classroom." We had a brief chuckle and I left. I have the very bad habit of forgetting things so I had to go back to the lounge to get more papers that I had printed, the same man was sitting in the room and said to me "Oh I get it, parent teacher conferences are today and you want to look your best. I know how it is, my wife brings out the heels whenever this time rolls around." I simply stated "No. Parent/teacher conferences has nothing to do with my dress, I wear this everyday. It doesn't bother me at all." Finally he says "Oh, so when you get that administrative job you'll be comfortable dressing like this." I simply said "yep" and left.

There's nothing really new here, we've heard and have probably discussed this before, but this one particularly bothered me. I thought back to something that I said to my students yesterday when they bombarded me with the question, "Can we clean our desk out?" I asked them "Why? So your parents can think that you keep a clean desk? Why not let them see how messy you keep your desk? Why now do you care how clean your desk is? Why not keep it clean everyday?" To some degree this is how I feel about the wife of the man from this morning and some of the teachers in my school. All of a sudden it is so important for you to dress the professional part, but what about the other 175 days of the school year? Why is it so important to dress like a professional for the 6 days during conferences? Why not let the parent see you in your usual appearance?

I'm just putting that out there. I know it's long. Sorry. Please comment and educate me on this topic. Teaching is a profession and teachers want to be treated like professionals, and I do feel that dress is a certain part of that. Not only does it put the appearance out there, but it also places a certain professional "air" within yourself. At least for me it does.