For a long time, we have slowly began to see how perceptions of others, self and the community change. In education we feel as though often the perception of our school or our students is unfair due to circumstances outside of their control. As leaders, we often take drastic steps to ensure that the perception of the school or the schools community is better. We often partner with community members and businesses, we use money leftover from the previous years budget to fix up the school and make it better for the students. Who we often forget about in the view of perception as teachers, is ourselves. I for one can acknowledge this that as I used to be that teacher who wore jeans and a polo to work everyday.
So what changed? What changed was that my responsibilities changed. My second year at a North Las Vegas middle school, I was no longer just a teacher. I was a Social Studies Department Chair, I had designed and implemented a "House" system, I chaired the Student Involvement Committee, a member of the Teacher Walkthrough Corp and the PBIS Internal Coach. The simple fact was that I had my hands in lots of jars that worked directly with administration and it finally got to the point that I decided I needed to dress the part, think of the old adage, "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have." I really took that idea to heart and the first day I dressed up several teachers and students asked me if I had interviews that day, and I simply had to tell them that I had decided that I needed to dress in a way that I am perceived as a professional. A simple change in my dress was all it took to get everyone's attention, and too be honest it felt good.
So the question becomes: Why write a post about perception? The simple answer is that as teachers we often forget how we are perceived by people other than our co-workers. When it came to perception, the day I started wearing dress pants, shoes and shirts, my perception changed of myself. I felt better, I worked harder, and I was perceived as more professional by my co-workers, students and parents. As teachers, we have a desire to be seen and treated as professionals and it often takes our own thought process to get us to the point of realizing that if we wish to be viewed as professionals we need to dress the part. This even extends to our appearance, if we go to work looking disheveled, dressed poorly and not ready for the day, what are we telling our students and co-workers about how we view our job.
Throughout my internship, I learned more and more about perception than I ever knew. While the year before was my first year at a private school where men are to wear shirts and ties everyday, I at first thought, "why should I wear a tie, I'm just a teacher." Through my internship I began to understand the perception not just from the administration, but how professional dress is perceived by parents and community members. The professional dress, no visible tattoo, and traditional attire drives home the perception to staff, students, parents and perspective parents that our teachers and support staff are professionals and are here to provide the best possible education to your children. Perception is one lesson that I learned as part of my internship that I now fully understand the reasoning behind it.
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