I’ve always been a bit of a flower child. In the middle of the winter, I would sleep on our balcony just so I could “breath.” It was nothing for me to go weeks in the summer without knowing where my shoes were.
So, it makes sense that when I was applying for teaching positions out of Ed-school, I told my friends that I wanted to teach at a school where I could wear flip-flops every day. I found that school. It was perfect for me. There was no dress code. The only real rule was, do an amazing job teaching. So, I wore flip-flops every day, even during rainy season, just to show my friends how lucky I was.
Fast-forward six years and I teach in: heels, full make-up, blow-dried hair and business attire. Do my kids take me or class any more seriously then when I was a dirty hippie?…not really. In my opinion dressing a certain way will only get you so far with kids, they know good content whether you are in a Mumu or a tuxedo.
So really, the change was fundamentally for myself. Along the way, I found, that there’s something about dressing up that just sets the scene for me and makes me pay closer attention to what I’m doing. Make-up is like war paint to me. Blow-drying my hair, as twisted as it sounds, actually pumps me up. All of these details make teaching into a real profession, not just an activity that I enjoy doing.
Maybe someday I’ll get to the point where I don’t need to be all fancy-pants to teach, but for now, it’s my crutch…and it seems to work.