The Oatmeal thinks it does<\/a>, so there.<\/p>\nBut the following week I was back at the elementary school for another occasion.\u00a0 And I realized those words might have been written for an entirely different reason.<\/p>\n
Little was getting his Terrific Kid award in the school cafeteria.\u00a0 So I joined the leagues of parents on the itty bitty 2 feet high cafeteria stools for the ceremony.\u00a0 I brought a book to kill time before the ceremony but I did not read it while the 8,000 other kids were receiving their awards.\u00a0 Because you can only get away with that when the awards are given in the gym and the head of the person seated on the bleachers in front of you hides that fact that you’re reading.\u00a0 Besides I had something else to occupy my thoughts as I sat there.<\/p>\n
A young woman in faded jeans and a t-shirt walked up to the podium.<\/p>\n
“OK, we’re going to start with kindergarten,” she announced and began calling the names of students and reading statements from their teachers about why they were chosen for the award.<\/p>\n
I was confused because I had never seen her before.<\/p>\n
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Little.<\/p>\n
“Oh,” he said.\u00a0 “That’s the new counselor.”<\/p>\n
Huh.\u00a0 The entire school loved the last guidance counselor.\u00a0 She was there when my older kids were in elementary school and remained there until she got married and moved away to be closer to her husband’s place of employment.\u00a0 I liked her for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons was that at award ceremonies she stood up, introduced herself to the parents, and reminded them that she was always available for assistance or concerns with their children.\u00a0 If she wore jeans, I don’t remember it.\u00a0 But that may have been because her jeans were overshadowed by her outgoing personality and professional demeanor.<\/p>\n
Next to the new counselor was a young woman I recognized as the assistant principal.\u00a0 She arrived last year and other than a phone call on one occasion, I had never had any interaction with her.\u00a0 I only recognized her face because my children had pointed her out to me at other school events.\u00a0 She was also wearing jeans, although her shirt was more like a top than a t-shirt.\u00a0 She also failed to introduce herself or make any welcoming comments to the parents.\u00a0 She actually didn’t say a single word to the audience throughout the entire presentation.<\/p>\n
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and tried to gauge the other parent’s reactions.\u00a0 Did anyone else notice this?\u00a0 Did anyone care?\u00a0 Did the other parents already know who these women were?<\/p>\n
A woman from the Kiwanis Club was present to assist with giving out the awards, too.\u00a0 She was wearing pants, a fitted jacket, a pair of great boots, and a cool scarf.\u00a0 She stood at the podium, introduced herself, welcomed parents, congratulated students, explained how her organization sponsored the Terrific Kid awards among other community projects and invited everyone to the next Kiwanis Club meeting.\u00a0 She was probably in her 50’s.<\/p>\n
Nice job, Kiwanis Club, I thought.<\/p>\n
Then I sighed.\u00a0 Was I just getting old?\u00a0 Was the younger generation too hip to to wear professional attire?\u00a0 Was it just too geeky to introduce yourself in front of a room?\u00a0 Was I just expected to know and recognize who the school administrators were and what roles they played in my kids’ education?<\/p>\n
I knew that this Friday, like every Friday, was Spirit Day and the children and teachers often wore school t-shirts or school colors.\u00a0 But does a t-shirt have to be worn with jeans?\u00a0 Don’t they sell khakis or pleated dress pants anymore? \u00a0 Perhaps, it was also casual day and teachers and staff were allowed or encouraged to wear jeans.\u00a0 But administrators???\u00a0 Besides, these women must have known they were going to be standing in front of a room full of parents on this particular Friday.\u00a0 Was it unreasonable to expect them to pass on the jeans on awards day?<\/p>\n
I knew educators’ salaries were limited.\u00a0 But last time I checked a young woman on a tight budget still had a couple of fashion plans available.\u00a0 Purchase a few expensive high quality articles of professional clothing that can mix and match.\u00a0 Or buy what you need at WalMart or Target until you can afford something better.\u00a0 Heck, to this very day, if I want a new church dress, I just hit Goodwill and walk away with 2 or 3 for under $15.<\/p>\n
While we sat there and watched the children accept their awards, another young woman entered the cafeteria briefly.\u00a0 She looked around, smiled, and left before the ceremony was over.\u00a0 Little leaned over to me.<\/p>\n
“That’s the new principal,” he whispered.<\/p>\n
I shook my head sadly.\u00a0 At least the woman was in a suit dress.\u00a0 But she’d only been principal for 2 weeks—hardly anyone in that room could have known who she was.\u00a0 Was she soooo busy that she couldn’t jump in at the end of the awards and say “Hi!”\u00a0 And by “Hi!”\u00a0 I mean, literally, “Hi!”\u00a0 Because fully introducing herself would obviously be too freakish.<\/p>\n
Little got his award and the kids went back to class.\u00a0 I get it.\u00a0 It’s my job as a parent to teach my kids the social skills they need to get through life.\u00a0 When we’re off to an event or party where they’ll be meeting new adults we have to remind them to shake hands, look people in the eye, and say things like “Nice to meet you.”\u00a0 We remind them to talk slow and loud when they are speaking to a group and go easy on the “um” and “like.”\u00a0 We explain that when you’re standing in front of a room full of people, introduce yourself, greet the audience, and explain why you’re there.<\/p>\n
Imagine if kids saw that happen in real life.\u00a0 In school.\u00a0 By the the adults that they like and respect and hope to emulate one day.<\/p>\n
The teachers and administrators in my school district are mainly hardworking educators.\u00a0 They spend a lot of time trying to convince state and local government to take their concerns seriously and compensate them like the professionals that they are.\u00a0 Imagine if every time they stood in front of a group of parents, they looked like professionals.\u00a0 And acted like professionals.<\/p>\n
You’re not working at Google, people.\u00a0 I even put on my sweatshirt without the dog hair to be there.\u00a0 And kept my book closed once the talking started.\u00a0 Which made me realize that our graffiti artist might have another reason for her complaint.<\/p>\n
Maybe Ms. J—– wore jeans and a t-shirt to last quarter’s award ceremony.<\/p>\n
“Here’s your award, kid.\u00a0 You’re a Terrific Kid and I really mean it.\u00a0 You can tell I mean it because I wore my favorite jeans from college.”<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
Stuped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I was at the local elementary school for Middle’s basketball practice.\u00a0 When I went to the use the bathroom I discovered that kids are still writing on the bathroom stall doors.\u00a0 Take that, social media!\u00a0 The pen is still mightier than the smartphone. But even more enjoyable than the triumph of old school graffiti […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11678"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11744,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11678\/revisions\/11744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}