Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/26748
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON We all remember at least some of our teachers for all manner of reasons. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Hoskins, springs immediately to mind. She was a lovely young woman, a freshly minted teacher and a newlywed. The cafeteria at Haymount School was under renovation that year, so we second graders ate lunch at our desks every day, munching on whatever our mothers put into our metal Cinderella or Roy Rogers lunch boxes or from trays wheeled into the classroom from a makeshift cafeteria somewhere. Mrs. Hoskins, however, enjoyed a hamburger and French fries, brought to her every day by her equally attractive young husband, who gazed adoringly at her as she ate her daily burger. I can still recall his mooning face. I have no idea what else I learned in second grade. Other teachers stand out as well, including a handful of truly gifted ones who planted the seeds in me to become what one of the Precious Jewels calls “a life-long learner.” These are the people who truly chart the courses for our lives by showing us a world beyond ourselves. Whether my teachers were inspiring students or simply chowing down, they had one thing in common: They all looked like and dressed like teachers. Not that there is a teacher uniform with embroidered badges reading Mrs. Hoskins or Mr. Bryan, but there is a teacher style. It is less formal, far more approachable, always neat and tidy and always, always features comfortable shoes. Like art, I cannot exactly describe the teacher look, but I know it when I see it, whether in the classroom or in the aisle of the grocery store. But dear me! It seems the teacher style has fallen out of fashion in at least some schools up the road in Wake County, and probably in some Cumberland County classrooms as well. Wake County has a dress policy for school-system employees using words like “professional” and “appropriate” but without defi ning those terms. Cumberland has a similar generic policy aimed, like Wake’s, at all school personnel, including teachers, but no one seems to know what either one of them actually means. Dress codes for students are much more specifi c, addressing saggy britches, bare midriffs and strapless shirts, among other trendy fashion practices. IMA It seems that in Wake County, folks are having trouble telling the teachers from the students, causing a mini fl ap for that system’s school board, as if it did not already have enough on its plate. Some teachers, generally young people who may not have made what the president of the Wake County chapter of the N. C. Association of Educators terms the “wardrobe transition” from college student to teaching professional, are showing up in the classroom in ripped jeans, short skirts and — goodness gracious — fl ip fl ops! I remember that transition myself. Moving from college to the workplace did require a bit of shopping, but even more learning what was suitable. Several long-sleeved dresses were helpful for me in a conservative offi ce, but I have a painful memory of the day our big boss made the boss of one of my peon peers talk to her about low-cut blouses. Both she and her extremely uncomfortable boss nearly died of embarrassment with that conversation. Most of us get the wardrobe-appropriate message fairly quickly, and I hope Wake County’s student look-a-likes do so as well. Teachers, like parents and in some instances even more than parents, are not only teaching academic subjects but modeling “appropriate” behavior, including “appropriate” attire for the students in their classrooms. How else are students going to learn that what one wears to work and what one wears for a casual day at the beach with friends are probably not the same unless one is a professional lifeguard? This little fashion brouhaha is a mild distraction compared to the Wake County diversity versus neighborhood schools issue, and with any luck, it will resolve itself so that teachers and students can concentrate on their work, not their clothes. The bottom line is, of course, that while what we wear is not nearly as important as our values and what we do with our lives, it does matter and it does, to some extent, defi ne us. One of my favorite writers, the ever clever Mark Twain, puts it this way: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no infl uence on society.” MARGARET DICKSON,Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upandcomingweekly.com THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Looking the Part All Kids 12 & Under - $5.00 • Tickets Still Available Saturday, March 12th Your FireAntz are back in action! • Brought to you by Cape Fear Eye Associates Come support the FireAntz as they push for the playoffs! Only two regular season home games left • St. Patrick’s Night - March 17th • Season Finale - March 26th For more information visit: www.fireantzhockey.com 910.321.0123 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARCH 9-15, 2011 UCW 5 PUCK DROPS AT 7:30 P.M. ! t F n u e , n m A n i f at of E elb YL F, re dr tn a