Dressing for Class
So today I am wearing:
* a lightweight grey/black houndstooth suit
* a lavender windowpane broadcloth shirt
* A tasteful matching tie
* these silver cufflinks ( aphd graduation gifty and my traditional first-day wear)
* black dress shoes.
So ok, I look nice, I think. I do not think, on the first day of classes, I look freakishly overdressed...I am not, for example, wearing (as my colleague's son believed) a tuxedo. But EVERYONE has commented on my attire. And I have yet to see anyone in my department wear a suit.
This is not an enculturation thing I'll bend to easily. I think it's important to dress for class, especiially early on, for reasons both personal and pedagogical:
1. I am a professional, and I think that every once in a while, my clothing should reflect that.
2. I take my classes very seriously, and (given my fairly informal in-class persona) I think that dressing seriosuly helps send students that message. Do I think you send that message by wearing jeans? No, not necessarily. I however will wear jeans later...when I know that I'm not joking around about the task in front of us.
3. This is a costume for me. When I acted (badly) I found that one of the single most helpful components of the rehearsal process was getting into costume, into the body of the person I was performing. So even if I'm not totally mentally prepared to begin the semester, the suit is a mnemonic, if you will, a device to help me remember what my body feels like in front of the classroom, how I'll move, how I'll breathe.
4. I have some nice clothes and I like to wear them. How often does one really get to wear the TIffany cufflinks, anyway?
5. Our society and our profession often holds women to unreasonable standards of dress, and so in a small way, not dressing in jeans at least acknowleges that clothing is part of how we make judgments about people, justifiably or no, and this is a small way to not play into the double standard...I can't change the double standard, but I can choose not to reinforce it.
So I look a little out-of-place, but no one will ever mistake me for someone who doesn't care, and given the choice, I will usually choose to be taken as a professional at what I do. Because I am a professional.
And I'll be even more out-of-place next week...when I'm still wearing a suit. 'Cause dammit, I got 'em, and I wanna wear 'em.
technorati tag: teaching-carnival
Comments
Preach it!
I too wear a suit the first day of class--and usually the second day of class--every term. Like you, I like suits (and I've got plenty of them and I look damn good in them, though I sez it myself), and and like you, I think it sends an important message of respect and seriousness to my students. As you say, it's also a way of getting oneself into a role.
I simply don't understand the incomprehension, sometimes bordering on hostility, that dressing well provokes from some people: I don't care if YOU teach in 10-year-old khakis and a t-shirt (although I'm within my rights to think that you're unprofessional for doing so), so I'll thank you not to tell me, condescendingly, that, oh, I don't "have to" dress up around here, because "we're all pretty casual." To my mind, it's a species of the same tiresome American strain of anti-elitism that one sees everywhere--among academics it's not, obviously, an anti-intellectualism, but it's really the same suspicion of anyone or anything that might possibly be construed as fancy or frivolous or unnecessary.
All of which is to say: I love the cufflinks! You go.
Posted by: Flavia | August 21, 2006 6:02 PM
Ryan, what does your drycleaning bill look like?
Posted by: George | August 21, 2006 6:32 PM
Oh, and check out ProfGrrrrl on frumpitude.
Posted by: George | August 21, 2006 6:46 PM
I won't attribute anti-elitism to my colleagues, many of whom did their grad work in NYC or LA, but I do think some of them have simply acculturated in a way I haven't. The area here is anti-elitist (andanti-intellectual in many ways, so it does come from students to a large degree.
But I'm the guy who teaches Wilde, so why is anyone surprised?
Oh, and George? My dry cleaning bill is pretty wicked, but I don't have go to the dry cleaners that often... I don't actually dress like this the whole semester (just as much of it as I can get away with...)
Posted by: Cats & Dogma | August 21, 2006 8:22 PM
I started dressing up for work about a year ago, wearing what I would call a step above business casual. I wore slacks and button down shirts, sometimes a blazer and *gasp* heels. I got so many comments, but like you, I felt like I was a professional and should dress like one. I don't think I should expect respect from people I work with if I'm dress like a slob (as some people in my dept. do). Plus, I like dressing up.
Posted by: Laura | August 22, 2006 7:31 AM