Abstract:

Ellen Berg, who hates to shop, wonders how important the image she projects is as she assumes seniority and leadership roles in her school.

Berg, E. (2004). Do clothes make the teacher leader? Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 10 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/EB02_04_05.html 

Full Text:

Do Clothes Make the Teacher Leader?

I may be one of the handful of women in the United States who really doesn't enjoy shopping. It seems like when I have money allotted to buying clothes, nothing fits or, more often, what is in style is ghastly. I am still having flashbacks from that awful seventies trend of the past few years; low rise and skin-tight somehow don't work on my thirty-something body like they might have when I was a teenager.

Even when the styles aren't heinous, I usually wander aimlessly picking up this and that, never really certain what, exactly, I ought to be wearing. In the end I pick up yet another pair of black pants or a skirt and go home feeling clunky and old. I hate it.

It has only gotten worse over the past few years as I recognize I am no longer the new kid in my school. I have served on curriculum and school improvement committees, presented workshops, and been selected our school's teacher of the year. I am the communication arts department chair, and, until this year, the senior member of our team. I feel a lot of pressure to become well-dressed so that my outward image is congruent with my inside image.

Am I putting undue pressure on myself? I do not know. When I go downtown for meetings, all of the central office people are dressed to the nines. Everyone seems ready for a fashion shoot, serious and professional in their tailored suits and shiny shoes. I have little desire to join the ranks of central office anytime soon, but I am still aware of the impression I may be making.

Is it really important to be well dressed to be taken seriously? Better yet, should it be important? I have developed a strong resume' that demonstrates my abilities as a teacher and a leader, but I definitely do not dress the part.

If there was a rubric to define teacher leader, what would the criteria be? Along with modeling effective teaching, sharing with others, taking risks and aligning words with practice, should we include polished shoes, tailored clothes and impeccable taste?

Using the "For the children" yardstick
I guess the real question I am investigating is what factors into a teacher's credibility? Last week I wrote about the need to model what I preach about classroom management and the importance of building relationships with students. All week long I visualized many pairs of eyes on me as Tyrone and several of my homeroom students tested the limits. During a team conference with a student from another homeroom, I tried to model how to teach a student to reflect and set goals while two team members seemed bent on making him feel the wrongness of his actions. By the end of the week, one of my teammates who had approached the young man with an authoritarian manner was asking me how I would handle another situation in his classroom. Does that mean I am credible in his eyes?

As I write this, I am also thinking about my credibility with my students. All week they have been watching what I have been doing, making their own judgments about me and the way I handle my classroom. I am almost embarrassed to think that my primary focus was to maintain credibility with my colleagues rather than with my students. The end result is the same—I treated my students with respect and dignity and maintained high expectations for them—but shouldn't I have concerned myself with how I would appear first to my students and then my colleagues?

A woman I have known through listservs for several years now, Juli Kendall, recently described the mission of some of the teachers in her school. She teaches struggling readers who are largely from the Hmong culture, and the school includes many teachers from this same culture. Their mission is simply, "For the children."

Perhaps the way we best build credibility with our colleagues is by measuring our actions against the "For the children" yardstick. If our goal is to always do what is best for our students and we make decisions based on that philosophy, won't we be modeling what we want all teachers to do?

In the end, I am pretty certain my students do not care about a little mud on the heel of my shoe or my complete lack of fashion sense. I think they care more about how I treat them and I what I believe they can do.

You see, it really isn't about me, and it isn't about you; it's about the children.

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