Yes, Teachers Wear Ties

Yesterday I went to see a new doctor about a stress fracture I got while training for the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon.  I am proud to say that while my time wasn't record breaking by any means, I accomplished a goal that I had set for myself several years ago, to run a half marathon before turning 30.  This doctor wanted to get another x-ray of my leg, so I followed the technician down a long hallway to the x-ray room.  While we walked, well, she walked and I crutched, the technician made small talk.  As we were entering the x-ray room, she complimented me on my watch, noticed my shirt and tie, and said, "you must work in business, huh."  It was more of a statement than a question.  She was more than a little surprised to learn that I am actually not a businessman or investment banker but a high school English teacher.

After seeing the surprise on the technician's face I felt the need to explain why I dress the way I do for my job as a high school English teacher.  Here is how I responded:

Just like businessmen, teachers are professionals.  While it seems that we don't always get the same amount of respect as people who work in other professions, we are professional educators and I think we need to dress the part.  I wear a shirt and tie every day so that my students, parents,  administrators, and community members can see that I am a professional who cares about his job, his students, and his image.  I tie my tie every morning hoping that at some point in the future when one of my students is getting ready for a job interview they will remember my professionalism and choose to act with that same professionalism as they enter the work force.  

The x-ray technician was surprised by my statement; I'm not sure if she was surprised that I feel so strongly about my profession or that I  have a legitimate reason to dress professionally every day when I don't work in an office.

Please don't misunderstand my statement.  By no means do I believe that in order to be a good teacher or to be well-respected that you must wear a suit, a tie, or a dress to work every day.  This is just one way that I choose to display my professionalism.  Each of us displays our professionalism in a different way.  

I am very interested to hear other ways educators display their professionalism.  Please leave a comment sharing how you share your professionalism with your students, colleagues, administrators and community. 

Popular posts from this blog

5 Technology Tips for the Not-so-Tech-Savvy Teacher

Image
The popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, coupled with high-tech video games and 21 st century entertainment for our students outside of school is necessitating a change in the way we as educators prepare and present information to our students.  Gone are the days where we can get away with 50 minutes of lecturing.  Our students are watching engaging Youtube videos and reading Facebook statuses to get their information instead of reading magazines and waiting for their favorite shows to come on TV.  Today’s students want their classroom experience to be as engaging as their lives outside of school.  The only problem is that most of us did not grow up in the same technological age as our students.  Integrating technology into your daily plans can be a very daunting task for an educator who is not familiar with Web 2.0 tools.  Here are 5 tips that will help you start using technology in your classes.  1- Get comf...
Read more

Low-tech methods to teach 21st Century Learners

Image
One of my favorite type of activities to do with students in my 9th and 10th grade language arts classes is to incorproate social media into lessons.  I like to have students make Facebook pages for characters in stories, create Twitter feeds for characters and write blog posts that allow them to compare issues in a text with issues that are faced in our society today.  While this all sounds great in practice, I quickly learned that making my dream of seamless socian media integreation  into a reality was a little harder than I thought it would be. To combat the lack of technology and firewall issues that  have stopped me from incorporating Twitter, Facebook and blogging into my classes, I have come up with low-tech paper-and-pencil replacements.  Below are three sample low-tech activities I do with my students in place of their web-based counterparts.  Click on the name of each project to view the handout for each project. R+J 140 http://goo.gl/Q...
Read more

A Metamorphosis of Educational Proportions

Image
Before this school year started, a colleague I respect asked me to attend a training session with him for a new grade book program our district was going to roll out.  Little did I know that my quick response was going to trigger a metamorphosis in me. Before I go any further, let me provide you with a little background:  I have been a professional educator for the last seven years.  For the last six years I have taught freshmen and sophomore language arts.  I have always thought of myself as an educator who was able to get the job done with students, but I was light years behind most of my more experienced colleagues. Fast forward to the grade book training:  After two days of training provided by the school district, we were on our own to answer teacher, student, parent and administration questions about this new program.  While I never considered myself a building leader of any kind, I was quickly thrust into a leadership position in re...
Read more