As the new school year quickly approaches me (T minus 8 days of summer before my new teacher orientation!), I have been thinking about outfits for the first few days/weeks.
For those who don't know me personally, I am one of those people who always gets mistaken for younger. When I was 18, my cousin, 12 at the time, was often mistaken for my older sister. At my first teaching job (and second), I was stopped in the hallway and asked to present my hall pass. Granted, I teach high school, so at least people don't think I'm 10. I had hoped that 6 years post COLLEGE graduation, I was past that stage of my life.
Skip ahead to yesterday. A wonderful classmate of mine from college volunteered to give me a tour of my ginormous new school. (Here's perspective: the high school I'll be at is more than 4 times larger than the last one I taught at full time.) In the hallway, we met up with another Social Studies teacher, who very politely asked me if this was my first year teaching. Seriously. My first year teaching was in 2008. But hey, I guess she didn't think I was a student. (Though I was introduced as the new social studies teacher.)
So that leads me to my big questions: Does anyone else out there have this problem? Not just in the classroom, but any workplace.
How do you dress to overcome some of that?
Young, young looking, or young at heart teachers, how do you dress at the beginning of the year to have visual leadership in your classroom?
I always buy a new first day of school outfit, so I'm looking for some inspiration for my upcoming year.
Oh, and feel free to leave any stories you have of being mistaken for much younger. The only time it really doesn't happen to me is when I'm with my nephew, who has my eyes (they're pretty common in my family). Then people at least don't openly state that they think I'm young. They probably just think I'm a teenage mom, with a 6 year old.
