By Christina Griffin

If you look around the hallways, you’ll find a lot of sweatpants and PJs, a style among Conard students, that in a way, satisfies the cliche that high schoolers just roll out of bed and don’t care about their appearances. In fact, I don’t do much to fight the stereotype, I only wear jeans once a week. 

 

This fashion trend or lack thereof, could be blamed on the pandemic. If school can be done lying in your bed, it can totally be done wearing sweatpants or PJs at school. Other than a few kids dedicated to fashion, it’s gotten pretty casual. However, what about the other population at this school, the teachers? Are they getting more relaxed? Are they dedicated to professionalism, never even thinking of wearing sneakers, or are they letting loose as well?

 

From some observations I’ve made, the teachers aren’t scared of dressing casually. They might wear some school spirit or casual shoes. Jeans aren’t even delegated to Fridays anymore. Teachers used to have to pay to wear them on Fridays. This payment still exists today in the form of contributions to scholarship funds, but teachers can dress casually on other days of the week. There are also themed days for the teachers to show their school spirit. There are red and gray days where casual clothing that shows school spirit is encouraged. So how do teachers feel about dressing casually?

 

Mrs. Leake is an English teacher at Conard. She likes to dress professionally: dresses, blazers, and slacks, but being able to move around the room comfortably is also important to her. Her attitude towards dressing is that she’s a “model” for her “students”.  She finds it important for her students, especially seniors to see an example of professionalism. Compared to 15 years ago, Leake dresses less formally, however, she still wants to show that she takes her work seriously. With that said, when Friday comes around, she’ll dress casually to engage with the school. 

 

Mr. Bassi is a history teacher here. He would describe what he wears in a week as “Not too fancy, but not too casual”. He’ll wear khakis and a button-down shirt 3 days out of the week. He’s a fan of casual Friday, he’ll even do casual Wednesday sometimes. His casual outfit is jeans with an untucked collared shirt, really wild! Bassi wasn’t always a believer, he didn’t even think of dressing casually when it wasn’t Friday. The pandemic changed his routines though. He saw it become more normal to dress casually on Wednesdays. He still sees it important to dress formally on the other days of the week, though he thinks that could change as he gets older. 

 

Teachers are dressing more casually. However, it’s not like they’re teenagers, they are getting paid to show up. This fact probably means that they’ll probably never wear pajama pants or wrap a blanket around themselves while teaching (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, some classrooms are chilly). The world might be getting casual, but these teachers still see themselves as role models for their students. I for one think it would be funny for teachers to show up with fuzzy pajama pants, but it’s probably for the best that they don’t.

 

Thank you to Mrs. Leake and Mr. Bassi for agreeing to be interviewed.