One of these days I’m going to stop ordering dresses online.
This one I found at a website called Shabby Apple (perfect name for a clothing place for a teacher!) and it’s everything I wanted in a dress. It’s comfortable, easy fitting, and the length is perfect on my body type. Plus, I knew it would look pretty decent on me since the model looks awfully similar to me.
This isn’t me. Those are not my feet, nor are they my legs, and those definitely are not my shiny lips. My mother has begun making her way across the United States all the way to Black Rock City and needed to take my precious Canon camera with her. If I had my camera and it wasn’t being defiled across the countryside (read: my camera is on a field trip and I am not and I WANT TO BE) then I would have taken a picture of this dress with me in it.
It’s what I’m going to wear tomorrow to the first day with the teachers on our staff as we ready for the first day of school on Monday.
It’s what I’m going to be wearing when I do the very hard work of educators.
It’s what I will have on when I anticipate a difficult meeting with a few teachers during this first year of restructuring.
Am I ready for this? Do I have everything in order to lead in a different capacity? What have I learned in the last year that gives me the experience necessary to do well?
These aren’t answers I feel that I know right now. As much as I wear confidence like a new dress and strut around in it, I am just as insecure about what it is that I will be able to do and affect. I’ve been trying to anticipate some of the questions and concerns and there is one in particular that I know will come up by not one but several teachers. Not to paint them with a negative brush, but the fact is: some people in general are contrary and oppositional by nature. If I quiet my mind I can even hear it in their voice as the words ring through my head:
What are we gonna do about the kids who come to school in baggy jeans and hoodies and won’t follow the dress code, huh? WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?
For now, it is the only answer I have. The only thing I feel confident about. The only thing that, while wearing my new dress with a swishy skirt and feeling young and breezy and easy, the only answer that I know for sure in this otherwise uncertainty:
We are gonna teach them. Every one of them. Every day.
Good luck, sweetie. I know you will do a great job!
Hugs,
Shash
xoxo
If you were my administrator, I may have not quit teaching in June. I say that in the least creepy way possible. Because hoodies and baggy jeans don’t freaking matter. Relationships with kids do.
Now I miss my kids. Curses.
KBOs last blog post..The Links: 8/21
Oh, snap. I read your post before I read your Twitter feed. I swear we are snarky teacher soul sisters. I want to publish a book of stupid parent e-mails. My husband, also a teacher, sponsored his school’s gay/straight alliance. A mother e-mailed him and said her daughter wasn’t allowed to join the “AIDS Club”. He also called a kid out on plagiarizing an entire paper word for word, and the student’s mother tried to justify his actions by saying that since three references were required, his entire paper was one source, and he should at least get 1/3 credit.
Don’t get me started about when I was student teaching in Germany and a scary maroon-haired German mom flipped the f out on me told me she was going to get me fired for disciplining her son. Lady, I’m a student teacher. Please fire me so I can get a paid job, for real.
KBOs last blog post..The Links: 8/21
That is an awesome dress. I know you can do it. Be strong, be fair, be consistant and they will look up to you. The best educators I’ve worked with have all those things and I’m sure you do to. (coming from a resigned phys ed teacher soon to be back teaching in a private school)
Just learned that YELLOW is the color for confidence and energy.
Rachels last blog post..Clothing for your lifestyle
I want! I WANT! lol
Bris last blog post..Fajita Chicken Roll-ups (or how I fed myself today)
Also! I went to the site thinking it would be too expensive, but it’s not! Yay! New shopping website! Wait…damn. What you are trying to do to me?!
Bris last blog post..Fajita Chicken Roll-ups (or how I fed myself today)
that dress is awesome!
Lus last blog post..Word Up!
I don’t think anyone’s going to ask about the kids with the baggy jeans. They’re all going to be too busy asking, “Who’s the hottie in the blue dress? Yowza!”
And they *will* say “yowza,” mark my words.
Knock ‘em dead!
jennys last blog post..Working for the Weekend
Just love ‘em up, Mocha. Just love ‘em up. Won’t be easy, but do your best.
And the dress — FIERCE!
No, you’re supposed to say:
“We’re going to teach the shit out of them!”
Avitables last blog post..Averagely Good Not so Bad Intentions
I would wear that dress every damn day. It’s brilliant! And I’m not even British.
All Adithers last blog post..Will I ever shut the hell up about how badly Food Allergies Blow?
“We are gonna teach them. Every one of them. Every day.” Yes. I can’t say more than that, I can’t say it better. Thanks for being my sister in teaching! (and wowza, love the dress!)
Daisys last blog post..Small Steps
It’s all you CAN do. They aren’t going to stop learning just because of the baggy jeans and hoodies. They will, however, stop learning because a teacher chooses to judge them. God, Mocha… you have a tough job ahead of you. I soooo don’t envy you, but that’s because I wouldn’t be able to do it. It’s not in my tool box to deal with those kinds of co-workers. But then I think, wow… if anyone can do it, it’s this strong confident woman that I admire so much… the same woman that lit up every room at BlogHer… the one who laughs at danger… hahahaha! Rock the Dress, Lady!
Not to blow off the point of this post here -
but I have been looking for a shirt dress forEVER that doesn’t end up looking too bulky on me.
Do I have to be an educator to pull this off you think?
Miss Britts last blog post..Scared
If only education were as easy, breezy and beautiful as that dress (and you in it, I imagine).
May the force be with you on Monday (and all year long).
Gwens last blog post..Vanishing Acts
I love my Shabby Apple dress! (not the same one you have — but I love yours too).
The kids in your school are lucky to have you and so are their parents even if they are too clueless to realize it some of the time.
mayberrys last blog post..There’s Victorian, and then there’s VICTORIAN
I want that dress…really really bad, and I don’t even wear dresses.
Teacher’s..the good ones…they should be knighted and given a huge ass pay raise. (said the daughter, granddaughter and neice of teachers)
mps last blog post..The ABC Meme..
‘We are gonna teach them. Every one of them. Every day.”
That statement right there is the reason why teachers should get paid a whole heck of a lot more money than they do. Good luck!
Gorgeous dress..to bad I dont have the shape or body for it
umm what are you suppossed to do with those kids who dont follow the dress code, send them to the firing squad?
You are amazing.
You’re the kind of educator I would want for my child – but know that are so rare.
(((hug)))
Rock the dress lady – and Rock the new school year. They’ll learn… and they’ll thank you for it!
What you are gonna do is kick some serious educational ass. Go get ‘em!
Elizabeths last blog post..First day back
You can never go wrong with a wrap dress and a great teacher can never go wrong when making sure that every child they are responsible for gets taught.
Good luck.
Ms. Bar Bs last blog post..An Inside Look
That dress is smokin’. Please wear it with the collar up. You can totally pull off the raised collar. Hubba!
sizzles last blog post..I’m Putting the “E” in Meme
Cute dress! You are so lucky you can buy dresses online and have them fit! I always have to try something on before I know if I even like it and especially if it will fit. I must be between every size in something and never know if the smaller or larger one is right til I try it.
I love the comment in a previous post about what one can do for the kid whose pants sag, etc. and the answer of course being “teach them each and every day”. We get a lot of those kids at my school too and I guess I am just thankful they chose to make it to school rather than go to the streets that day. The more I teach and see what these kids go through on a daily basis the more I am glad (and amazed) that they made it to school.
There is nothing like a great outfit to make you feel like you are in control.
And I think your answer to their question is perfect.
I bet you did great!
Beth (A Mom’s Life)s last blog post..It’s Friday and I’ve got a giveaway!
Very spiffy for the hip young educator Kelly. I’m never going to stop ordering clothes online.
Pams last blog post..Babyland: For Shame America!
Damn if you don’t bathe everything in a new blanket of hope. Go get ‘em!
amandas last blog post..Compliments of my aching heart
please, please, please come work in oakland. please?
“every one of them. every day.” that is my new mantra. thank you for being the incredible, positive and brilliant force that you are.
plus your dress is effing hot, so you’ll look all “shabam” while throwing down the educational smack.
Thanks for reminding me even the people who I think have their act together feel a little melty on the inside about themselves too. Feeling good and confident on the outside can certainly do the job and that dress is what the doctor ordered. School em, Kelly, School em.
White Hot Magiks last blog post..Trying on a new dress.
Love the dress … and your attitude – smiles! Hey, she does kinda look like you, I mean us, I mean should she be Heather #5?
Wifey’s Houses last blog post..I Suck
Dear Kelly,
The dress looks perfect to face the first day at work.( I wonder if they deliver in Brazil).
I am sure you will be great in the new school year.
Fabiola
Fabiolas last blog post..The Macho World
Now, to tick off the English teacher inside you, I must say you will look fabulously in that dress and I can’t wait ’til your mother gets back w your camera so we can see!
Good luck with the first day!
And that dress is awesome.
Will you teach my kids? Your attitude is AWESOME. (And that dress! Wow!)
Whymommys last blog post..Emergency oopherectomy
Hold up… the woman in that picture … is that … Heather?
Look at Heather in that cute dress.
veep veeps last blog post..Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere
OK. I think the kids are going to have a hard time concentrating if you’re rocking that dress…
manager moms last blog post..The Girl Is Starting To Worry Me With Her Lists