Deconstructing Dress

This morning, I had to go to a meeting for ODE (well, I didn’t have to, but was invited to) on Ohio’s new credit flexibility plan.  It sounds pretty awesome, since they are allowing students to earn credit with or without the standard Carnegie unit where 120 hours of “seat time” equals one credit.  This way, students can work on independent projects, internships, etc. and get credit for them.  That’s sort of what I am working on for the gifted department, so it will be interesting to see how different districts use it in different ways (they all get to determine how to give credit locally).

Anyway, the meeting was in Plain City, OH (aka “the boonies”) at a Career and Technical Center and I had my Garmin all set to go, but the place is on a state route, which is always a little trickier because sometimes they have names and numbers and the Garmin gets confused.  So, I’m driving and driving and driving and the Garmin deposits me (or tries to) right in the middle of a cornfield.  I start to freak out a little until I remember that I have an iPhone!  So, I pull into some empty parking lot a little further down and I pull up Google maps and start to follow the directions on that.  Well, that takes me to a one lane, unmarked road near a farm house.  At this point, I am 15 minutes late and in a panic.  I call Dan because I am hoping that I had the address wrong or he can figure something out.  He doesn’t answer.  I leave a tearful plea on his voicemail.  I don’t know what to do and I feel like I might have to go old school and stop at a gas station to ask someone (insane!).  Then, I remember that I can also look up phone numbers on my iPhone, so I call the school and they help me get there (only 30 minutes late).  It was quite a debacle.  But get this, I get there and sign in with the secretary and she tells me that she printed out directions from mapquest and it took her to the wrong place too!  Today, technology has failed us all.

So, I walk into this meeting and it’s full of older men and women in suits and I feel a little underdressed (and late).  I’m wearing black dress pants and a jean blazer, but I am also wearing these nike mary jane things that I always try to convince myself pass for professional footwear.  In any case, I’m feeling bad about not being super professional looking and I have been thinking about this a lot lately.  What’s with suits and dressing up and all that jazz?  What would happen if people just started dressing casually all the time?  Might we feel too comfortable at work?  Might we adopt a less formal tone with our colleagues?  Maybe that would be a good thing.  I always feel more nervous when I am dressed up.  I also feel more distanced from other people.  I think that fancy clothes are supposed to make you feel more important, which sort of creates a wall between whoever is less important.  The other day in my technology class, we were talking about the student/teacher binary and how those roles are becoming less distinct, especially with the opening of information on the Internet as well as the access to vast knowledge communities.  The role of teachers and students should be more fluid… maybe they would all just be called “learners.”  So, if the distinction between student and teacher can go away, how about the distinction between dressed up and dressed down?  Let’s just call it “dressed.”  I say starting tomorrow everyone should wear whatever they please to work.  And, let me know how it goes because I’m off.