It is no secret that the instructing occupation is in disaster these days, with insufficient pay, growing pupil conduct issues and political assaults in lots of components of the nation driving huge waves of instructor resignations.
However even amidst these huge issues, many faculty districts appear to be lacking the purpose, specializing in petty, invented issues that academics say are making issues even worse — and leading to much more individuals quitting.
A lady detailed her district’s ‘one ponytail a month’ instructor gown code regulating how feminine academics put on their hair.
You would be hard-pressed to discover a higher instance of misplaced priorities than policing feminine academics’ seems to be. But it surely’s among the many many ridiculous working situations academics known as out in response to a viral TikTok by creator @educatorandrea wherein she highlighted methods faculty directors undermine the realities academics face.
Andrea’s viral video included infuriating contradictions like directors urging academics to give attention to self-care whereas additionally requiring them to join unpaid time beyond regulation, and forbidding them from utilizing Amazon want lists to entry the college provides they’re required to buy for his or her complete courses out of pocket — solely $500 of which they’re permitted by legislation to write-off on their taxes.
Andrea’s video in fact instantly resonated with academics, however one reply she obtained specifically blew academics’ minds — a lady who reported that her district’s ludicrous guidelines included a instructor gown code requiring feminine academics put on their hair in a ponytail not more than as soon as a month.
The lady says she and her fellow academics have been ‘bullied’ into accepting her faculty’s instructor gown code and its absurd rule about ponytails.
“Our [high school] simply handed a one ponytail per 30 days rule,” instructor and TikToker @raddishseed wrote in her remark, occurring to angrily muse, “WTF you coming to do my hair each morning? Like who [the f-ck] retains up with that?!”
The instructor went on to say that her fellow academics had been “bullied” into going together with the brand new rule, as they’re in a district not represented by a instructor’s union. The states of Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin majorly prohibit or outright ban collective bargaining for academics.
Ponytails are inarguably a petty and misplaced precedence, and Andrea’s surprised response mentioned all of it — “I am sorry, they… they did what now?” And different academics had been infuriated by it.
Academics really feel the instructor gown code’s one ponytail rule is filled with double requirements, and held it up for instance of why academics are quitting in droves.
“A query for the district the place academics are solely allowed to put on a ponytail one time per 30 days,” instructor and TikToker @millennialmsfrizz mentioned in her response. Referring to male academics, she went on to ask, “are you guys regulating how typically sure academics put on crocs, shapeless khakis, random polos with the college emblem on it from ten years in the past they present in a locker room?”
However the instructor gown code’s double requirements do not simply cease at gender, in fact. As has steadily been identified lately, gown codes usually typically embody requirements that unequally impression individuals of colour — for instance by forbidding Black employees from carrying supposedly “unprofessional” pure hairstyles.
Instructor and TikToker @amymanlapas known as this out in her response to the “one ponytail a month” rule. “Only a pleasant reminder earlier than the beginning of the college yr that gown codes are racist, classist, and sexist, and used as a type of harassment for workers that push again towards their bosses and supervisors,” she mentioned in a video.
However what galled her most is how misplaced the district’s priorities appeared to be. “At a time when persons are banning books, that is what this admin is targeted on,” she mentioned. “For this reason individuals go away the instructing occupation.” And that is not simply indignant hyperbole.
On the finish of the 2021-2022 faculty yr, schooling analysis group Chalkbeat discovered that instructor resignations had been at an all-time excessive in a number of components of the nation, and a 2022 research discovered greater than half of all academics severely contemplating leaving the occupation. So districts would possibly wish to get their priorities so as — they’ve a lot larger fish to fry than policing ponytails.
John Sundholm is a information and leisure author who covers popular culture, social justice and human curiosity subjects.
