suit and tie guy

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woodcutter
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suit and tie guy

Post by woodcutter » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:52 am

I have a question for you odd types who strut to work in a suit and tie and think you are more professional than your colleagues.

Your job, probably, is to relax the students and encourage informal conversation in the classroom. In what way is formal business attire appropriate?

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:09 pm

Clothes are very important in sending a message in the first 10 seconds when people judge you and decide how they are going to react to you. In the 70's, many women, including me, wore suits and ties to make a statement that the men were equal. A carefully dressed person makes a statement that s/he cares about her job and the people s/he is teaching.

However, it has nothing to do with making people feel comfortable. I can talk as informally as I want in a suit and make people feel comfortable, supported, and capable. They just know I respect the situation and the people by the way I dress.

In my Business Communication classes though I always dress up as the cleaning lady for the first class and when the students come in, I am busy cleaning. They always ignore me and find it strange when I start conducting the class and often laugh and make fun. Then I take off the oversize clothes of the cleaning lady to reveal a suit and professionally done hair. It makes the point, I hope, that you should respect everyone.

Sevans
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Post by Sevans » Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:42 pm

It's to show the students that you are professional and take their time seriously.

You can wear professional clothes and still put the students at ease. Students, especially depending on the culture, can be insulted if their teacher is dressed down as it shows a lack of respect for the position. Students here will often dress up for classes as well since they want to show respect to the teachers.

As Sally has said, it doesn't matter what you wear when it comes to making the students feel comfortable and supported.

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:38 am

Valid points, but isn't there an element of having your cake and eating it too?

Clothes are important - they show I am professional and serious.

Clothes are not important - wearing stiff and formal dress does not create a stiff, formal atmosphere.

Since clothes have a certain importance I feel the truly professional language teacher strikes a balance here and wears semi-formal dress. Going for the full lawyer or business look, it seems to me, is basically an attempt on the part of a conversational language teacher to claim a high status for themselves in an inappropriate way.

I don't mind if you do that. But you aren't more professional than those who don't.

iain
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Post by iain » Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:32 am

Is 'odd ones who strut to work in a suit and tie' a category? I'm trying to think of teachers I've known over the years who seemed to think that smart attire was evidence of their professional superiority but I can just think of a few and they were generally recognised as being 'clots', for want of a better word. I've come across many teachers who like to look smart simply because that's the way they feel comfortable in a professional situation. I've also met teachers who make a point of not looking smart and I'm pretty certain that they had more barriers to break when it came to making students feel 'comfortable'.
Is 'casual' best? Are trainers casual or 'sporty'? Are ironed jeans ok but frayed and unironed jeans not? Maybe there could be an official dress-code designed on a culture-to-culture basis to guarantee maximum comfort-creating impressions.

Sheila Collins
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Post by Sheila Collins » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:37 am

woodcutter wrote: Since clothes have a certain importance I feel the truly professional language teacher strikes a balance here and wears semi-formal dress.
I believe the truly professional language teacher understands humans communicate through means other than oral language, and dresses in a way which is appropriate for the class, the day, the students, the parents, the school, etc.

Just as I would not hire someone based solely on their education, I would not hire someone based solely on the way they dress.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:19 pm

Isn't it a bit academic, given the generally low (often down to local-level) pay in TEFL, the potential unavailability of large and/or good-quality gear once the stuff the teacher brought with them has worn out, the relative expense of booze, ciggies, ELT books etc? I for one haven't known anyone other than newbies who've just landed in new clothes to look sharp, and even they start to dress down and save the gowns and tiaras for the really big do's, once they realize that their colleagues aren't exactly sartorial most days.

All that being said, I certainly wouldn't object to being able to look the part that bit more - I must admit that I do sometimes entertain thoughts of transferring tux-clad from luxury limo to limo, all the while poking away at a blackberry to see how my shares are doing. Maybe those employers who have a strictish dress code could/should see their way to offering a clothing allowance of some sort? :idea: :roll: :lol: 8) Then the frontline, chalkface heroes could look less like zeroes, whilst the brains behind the scenes could look more like the dishevelled nerdy types they sometimes can't avoid being when they're humping masses of materials around and chasing dust bunnies out from behind the printers. (Actually, what's the point in anyone being in a suit if it's going to get covered in chalk, grubby little paw prints etc?).

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:59 am

My new school is full of chalk, and full of chalky suits.

It just bugs me that parents like suits, employers like suits, suits win promotion, suits say professional etc and that some people think it is important.

If you could choose clothing better designed to say "I am dull, old-fashioned, authoritarian and intimidating and not a chatty person" what would you choose?

jotham
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Post by jotham » Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:22 am

I think Americans especially are not into dressing formally for work. Editors are especially known for dressing down.

And Microsoft, for example, doesn't have a dress code, but encourage their workers to dress comfortably and decorate so as to personalize their offices, like being at home. Indeed, they make sure they hire the geniuses, and then they let them loose.

In Japan, on the other hand, everyone dresses really smart for office work, but think alike -- little creativity or genius. I seriously doubt that daily formal dressing improves job performance.

It seems creativity works best when one is comfortable, and formal attire can hamper that. Formal attire is best saved for big showy events. For instance, a pianist practices and does all the dirty work in casual clothes, but performs in fancy clothes to show off all that hard work.

Having students is a little different. They need role models to show them the importance of dressing well, but formal attire is going over, I think.

Sally Olsen
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Post by Sally Olsen » Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:42 pm

Maybe we should ask Stacy and Clinton of the TV show "What Not to Wear"
I'll send them a note and a copy of this discussion and maybe they will visit woodcutter and help him decide what to wear. They always seem to do miracles on the 30 minutes they have on TV.

lolwhites
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Post by lolwhites » Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:10 pm

For every teacher who "struts to work in a shirt and tie", there's one who tries too hard to look cool and turns up like they would for a rock concert. And they're both acting like prats.

I remember having a long discussion about this on my Dip course, and the general consensus was that people do judge by appearances, even if we think they shouldn't, so we should dress according to whatever helps us hold on to our jobs.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:51 pm

lolwhites wrote:I remember having a long discussion about this on my Dip course, and the general consensus was that people do judge by appearances, even if we think they shouldn't, so we should dress according to whatever helps us hold on to our jobs.
Yes, forget the AL stuff - long debates about what's professional teacher attire are obviously a lot more important (it's certainly easier to form an opinion about) and should therefore occupy plenty of time on Dips, as well as on this forum! :lol: :wink:

Actually I just remembered an encounter connected to my previous job. I was browsing in a branch of Tsutaya (a video store chain in Japan) after teaching at one of my elementary schools, and I ran into one of the students I'd been teaching, out with her older high-school sister. 'This is my English teacher!' the smaller girl excitedly explained to the older. 'Doesn't look much like a teacher!' the older snorted (or words to that effect). And I knew exactly what she meant - I had on a worn-out long-sleeved shirt despite it being summer, open neck with no tie (following Koizumi's lead LOL), black jeans, and quite a beard and unkempt hair going on (not quite Joaquin Phoenix in rapster mode, but you get the idea), thanks to the 5am starts and long commutes, and pro-rated delayed pay provided by my wonderful caring employer at the time...not that this stopped me from hastening forthwith to the nearest Uniqlo and getting at least a few new shirts, cleaning and pressing some proper trousers, then trimming away all the fuzz. When I emerged transformed from my hovel sometime later, people didn't quite think I was Daniel Craig arriving in Bermuda in Casino Royale, but a few assumed I was a pilot on leave (nice shirt, it t'were!). Anyway, my point is that I was providing kick-ass lessons for the kiddies, and they seemed to appreciate it, but I simply didn't have the time or more importantly the money to make impressing anyone and everyone at a surface level a priority; that being said, once I was made aware that I'd been letting things slide perhaps a bit too much, I made some effort to improve matters. Either way, teachers are only going to look sartorial when they are actually paid enough, and the clothes do not maketh the professor.

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Sun Mar 15, 2009 1:10 pm

Nice to hear from you Lol.

Wearing a suit does help long term Korea persons hold on to their jobs, because that's East Asian culture. It doesn't help them do their jobs effectively though.

I'm surprised that old Japan-lag fluffy hasn't been around more suited-up situations.

As to Sally's advice, the British version girls are called Trinny and Susannah, and my wife forces me to watch them anyway!

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:18 pm

'Doesn't help them do their jobs effectively though'

Then again, if you're not worrying about other's impressions of you (the flip side of the same coin is: and they aren't worrying about you being/looking professional and "up to the job"), you might actually be able to concentrate on the work at hand rather than (fret and perhaps indeed find out that you're going to) need to be justifying every pedgogical move you make simply on account of your (poor) attire. So clothes can be a bit of a psychological boost in the image/clothio-political war - a bit like the conclusion that lol reached, then! '(T)he general consensus was that people do judge by appearances, even if we think they shouldn't, so we should dress according to whatever helps us hold on to our jobs' ('or even be freely allowed to do them', I guess I have added!).

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:49 pm

A suit might also restrict your energetic antics, which are certainly encouraged on CELTA type courses.

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