Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Copyright Rocks My Socks Off!!
I thought class last night was pretty interesting. The presentations were all very well done and I enjoyed hearing about the different cases that were mentioned, some of them quite controversial. The one thing that really stuck out to me was the idea that Jose, Kristan, and Diana’s group brought up on Teacher’s Dress. It was mentioned about the impressionability of our youth and how what we appear like has an effect on them. I am going to have to agree. We need to present ourselves in a professional manner and this includes not only how we dress in the classroom but also how we carry ourselves in the classroom. If we present ourselves as being on the same level as our students we will never get their respect as their teacher and once we lose it we will have a hard time getting it back. In Dr. Vawter’s class we read Wong’s book “The First Day of School” and it talked about teachers’ appearance and what is appropriate to gain the respect of your students. It is important to show that you are the authority and your students will respond to that. You can achieve this simply by wearing a suitable outfit. I believe Dr. Pope said it one day in class that he would like to wear his pajama bottoms to his undergraduate class and see how differently they would respond to him because of his dress because that is what they wear to class. I think that dressing professionally is a part of the job and if people do not feel like they have to dress professionally as a teacher maybe they should look for somewhere else to find a job..oh wait most jobs have a dress code!! PS Sorry Allison that I didn't see your hand raised and talked in front of you-my bad!
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2 comments:
I like your title!
I agree with you, but I was wondering if you think this is at all different for art and p.e. teachers. We have limitations as far as what professional dress will allow us to do. Do you think that in these cases teachers loss respect by not dressing as professional as the other teachers?
Thinking back to my undergraduate classes, all my studio professors dressed down. Most of them wore jeans and smocks. Can professional attire still be embodied casually?
It is important that everyone understands how important appearance is; you are so right. However, I want to shed some light on something you said. You said something about teachers not being on the same level as the students because they will not respect the teacher. Just let me clarify something: if the teacher does not come to school dressed professionally, the kids will not take the teacher seriously and hence, will not respect the teacher. They will look at them as a buddy rather than an authority figure. When you say "on their level", it is important to remember that the best teachers are those who can relate to the kids and see things from their point of view without actually conforming to what they do or compromising their standards. This is because teachers are not kids themselves obviously. Just wanted to make that clear.
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