Dress for Success

 Usually, credits appear at the end. This time, they'll appear at the beginning.

Thanks to: 

Aviva Dunsiger @avivaloca for her two blog posts, one on Clothing, COVID and Unexpected Decisions, and the other on Clothes Shopping Be[ing] a Sign of Something More.

Doug Peterson @dougpete for his #twioe review that led me to Aviva's writing, as well as his clothing reflection blog post. (Doug, for what it's worth, I had school clothes, play clothes, and church clothes too growing up!)

Matthew R Morris @callmemrmorris for two tweets on August 27 about beard trimming and professional aesthetics. 

The TDSB TL Expected Practice Writing Team - Mark, Dawn, Wafaa, Kim, Wendy, and Andrea - for being such a lovely group of people (inside and out) and allowing me to take and publish our team shot here. It was such a joy to work with you all!

You can see in this photo that I'm no fashionista. I'm wearing my "When in doubt, visit the library" shirt and only recently got rid of all of the animal hoodies I was renowned for wearing. I'm not really great at dressing professionally. When I first was accepted into the Faculty of Education (at York), my parents bought me a coat that they thought would be appropriate for a teacher to wear. I still have that coat. I don't wear it often. I can "fake" it with some business casual outfits, but if I'm more inclined to wear it to a conference to impress people, rather than to school to work in, then it's not an actual teaching ensemble for me.

It's important to unpack some of the classist and gendered assumptions that accompany ideas around teacher attire. I'm no expert on the subject but my attempts at initial research just made me irritated. When I tried to do a Google search on the topic, I found articles such as Reasons Why Teachers Should Have a Dress Code (which was surprisingly one of the most balanced portrayals, with three reasons why they shouldn't and four why they should) a research paper on The Effect of Teachers' Dress on Students' Attitudes and Students' Learning (from a post-secondary view that did more about supporting student biases than about anything else), Dressing (Teachers) For Success (from an admin POV, where they talk about the "controversial" decisions around stockings and blue jeans), Teacher Attire Matters, and Here's Why (which made me bristle because the message was it's not okay for a police officer to reprimand a speeding teacher in the same way he/she would scold a speeding teen), Professional Wardrobe Tips for Teachers (by the NEA, who say at the end of the article, "Thrift shops are a good place to find bargains, but that may not be a good idea for teachers, Weingarten cautions: “Kids can be so critical of what their teachers wear.”", which made me wonder what they considered "thrift"),  What Is The Dress Code of an Elementary Teacher (a 2004 article that pronounced "T-shirts and sweats don't belong in the classroom, nor do shorts"). and Tips for Dressing Like a Professional Teacher (which was the most "reasonable" of the articles, although I chafed at the "age-appropriate" comment). Many of these articles do more to reinforce stereotypical ideas - don't even get me started on the race and size issues that underlie many of these position pieces. (For instance, all the models are white people - are natural or Black hair choices such as corn rows "unsuitable teacher attire"? What about tattoos?)

If you do an image search for "professional dress for teachers", you will see plenty of skirts and dresses, which are usually not part of my rotation AT ALL. Young children especially like to touch legs (bare or stockinged) and it's not practical when sitting on the floor or running around. This fits with what Aviva was discussing with regards to her criteria for selecting clothes (i.e. their compatibility with paint, mud, floor time, outdoor time, and creatures) . 

Aviva said in her August 15 post that she'd prefer to be purchasing school supplies than buying clothes. Ditto. I'm not a huge fan of clothes shopping, although it depends on the circumstances (e.g. I enjoyed those Weekenders clothing parties - see https://www.weekenders.ca/ for an explanation of the phenomenon, - and searching thrift stores with my sister and daughter are fun times), and others presume differently. For instance, my spouse is convinced that I actually own more than the average amount of shoes for someone in my income bracket. I disagreed; I own 15 pairs of shoes but this tally includes one pair of bowling shoes, one pair of flip flops, two pairs of Crocs and two pairs of Converse, and excludes my rain boots and winter boots - is he right? 

Having said I don't really like clothes shopping most of the time, I just spent more money than I anticipated on matching thread and buttons to repair and alter some clothes owned by my family members, and sometimes it's easier to just buy.

Tangent: I spent the weekend hemming pants, sewing seam splits and other seamstress activities, which was quite a bittersweet task. Originally, I was intimidated to learn how to sew because my mother was so good at it. I felt like I needed to learn because she wouldn't be around forever. At my request, my mom started to teach me how to sew (see the 2016 story here), then I took lessons from someone else and now in 2021, she's still around but her advanced dementia makes it impossible for her to operate her sewing machine safely anymore, so she's here but not. Returning to the original "thread" ...

My recent clothing journey also involved me resetting my internal "files" about myself. It took several returns for me to finally accept what my new size guidelines are and to purchase within them. It's better to be comfortable with a larger number on the tag. 

So, what's now in Diana's closet, if all the animal hoodies are gone? Well, I still am attached to my ponchos, which are perfect for layering. I bought significantly more blouses or dress shirts than I owned previously. I have quite a few rompers / onesies / pantsuits but fewer dresses. I still fit into many of those Weekender jacket/pants combos, so I still have those. I bought more jeans (after despairing that I could no longer fit into almost any of my jeans and giving away what no longer worked - thank you Value Village!) but I also have slacks.  Flowy Fairweather pants and long shorts are also part of my collection. Ironically, I think more of my outfits fit the "teacher professional dress" category.

PS - Happy 19th birthday today to my beloved son, Peter! Love you to the moon and back, Peter.