Teachers with tatoos and piercings

[Anonymous]

My principal has her tongue pierced.

[Anonymous]

Woman with tats = damaged goods.

Just who you want teaching your kids...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woman with tats = damaged goods.

Just who you want teaching your kids...

I know a nun with two tattoos. She’s a lovely person.

[Anonymous]

Our pediatrician briefly had a receptionist with multiple piercings (nose, eyebrow, lip), many tattoos, and strangely colored hair (this was 10 years ago, long before the current trend, which I think is odd). I thought it an bizarre choice, and was happy when she was no longer there. It is about being in a position of a role model, and sorry not sorry, but tattoos and piercing are not what I want as a role model for my children.
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[Anonymous]

I would never hire someone with visible tats. Shows poor judgement. But, these days you take what you can get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never hire someone with visible tats. Shows poor judgement. But, these days you take what you can get.

You’re seriously limiting your applicant pool. Prig, pride, square. Sorry your worldview is so narrow and your sex life is so proscribed.

[Anonymous]

I don't think folks understand just how bad the teacher shortage is right now. My school requires that every teacher has an ESL certificate due to the high numbers of students speaking many different languages. We used to get hundreds of qualified applicants for every open position. Now we get maybe a dozen applicants, mostly from unqualified applicants. We recently had to hire a new teacher. We interviewed a few people. Out of those, really only 2 were qualified in any sense of the word. Only one was decent. The one that was decent ended up not being able to accept the job. That left us hiring someone that we didn't really want. So a tatoo or piercing? No biggie. We just need folks who can teach. I'm so seriously glad that my own kids are nearly done with K-12. And I'm extremely, extremely worried about the kids I work with each year. We expect that about half of our teachers will retire in the next 3 years. I have no idea how any of our kids are going to learn with the applicant pool we have.

OP, you are worrying about the wrong things.

[Anonymous]

Wow, who dredged up this old one?

[Anonymous]

Um....so your saying my husband, who is an executive at Fortune 500 global company, that you have definitely heard of, is unprofessional, anti-social, a bad influence? I'll let him know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was at DC's school at an open house and one of the teachers was wearing a dress that showed off her large tatoos. She also has a pierced nose. As tatoos go, I think hers are tasteful. They are more the spiritual kind than the biker chick kind, although I can see them as being acceptable to both groups. The nose jewelry is small and unobtrusive, but it is still clearly there.

While I want to be open minded about this sort of thing, I have decided for a variety of reasons that I am uncomfortable with her flaunting these things around DC. I'm also having a hard time understanding why she thinks that it is acceptable for her to be so openly showing off her tatoos to the parents. I guess at a basic, fundamental level, I think it is pretty unprofessional. No one I work with would come to the job showing off their large tatoos in that way. Why is it supposed to be acceptable for school where I send my young child? I also worry that my kids will interpret this to mean that these things are mainstream and acceptable for them to do to themselves. Even worse, they think that this is too mainstream so they go out and do something more outrageous - like the tribal stuff I see kids doing to their ear lobes. Horror!

The real ironic thing is that while she is fine with showing off her tatoos and piercings at work, and I can only assume she thinks we should all be fine with it as well, she announces the policy that the school doesn't celebrate Halloween - but calls it an autumn festival or some crap like that. Maybe it is just me, but I think having my kid think its normal to get large tatoos and a pierced nose is more harmful than whatever the beef is these days with Halloween.

I don't plan to do anything about this lest I subject my kid to the potential for any retribution. Just thought I see if others have the same reaction.

Shouldn't we be expecting more from the people who are privileged to be in positions that enable them to serve as role models for our kids?

Get a life, OP. I mean that seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a generational thing, but my issue us that the teaching profession deserves more respect and more money so more bright, well educated college students will enter the field and stay in the field. If teachers want the same respect as lawyers and top business people then they need to dress professionally.

Teachers shouldn't throw their money away on fancy clothes when they have to work with messy little kids all day but I have been very surprised by how many of the young teachers at our elementary school dress. They wear very tight skinny jeans and heals or high boots every day. They look like they're going out downtown on a Saturday night. I hate to sound like a fuddy-duddy but these outfits are not helping their cause.

Why are you so judgy about how people look? How about how they act? How they treat others? How they do their jobs?

As zoologists, biologists, and sociologists will tell you, in the animal kingdom, including humans, how others look is a very important part of socialization and communicaiton. It means something. OP's kids teacher is making a statement and OP is reacting to it. This shouldn't be a surprise.

[Anonymous]

OP wrote this in 2013 so there’s really no point getting mad at OP anymore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I don't see her everyday so I don't know if she shows off her tatoos at school. I do know one of them might be kind of hard to hide. I also know that she wears that nose piercing everyday.

I think that talking to my kid about my views on the inappropriateness of his teacher is not a good idea. I think that it is important to his success that I appear to be supportive of her. Regardless of my views, DC needs to respect her.

I don't insist that people conform to my values. I'm not going to insist anything in this case. I just think it is poor judgment on her part and on the school.

She is not some random person that DC sees out and about. She is his teacher. Someone there to teach him academics and how to behave in the world. She is one of his primary role models. I just wonder if we should expect more since she has been given this role.

Exactly. She is there to teach him academics and how to behave in the world. What do her tattoos and piercing have to do with either?

Well, tattoos and piercings are anti-social and professional, so setting aside the distraction part of it, it also conveys a message that they're somewhat acceptable in polite society when, in fact, they will directly interfere with career advancement later in life if the child emulates the teacher. So, I do understand OP's issues.

You simply don't see tatoos in the board room.

I was in a very high-level meeting a couple of weeks ago and one woman was sporting a killer neck tattoo. Is it my taste? No, but she's a highly intelligent and successful professional. Why do people focus so much on superficial things?

Tatoos are pretty much not rare in anyone under 35 in any occupation. I think anyone under 35 considers them pretty normative. I see tatoos on women all over town on their
necks, their arms their hands etc. I went to church at a very conservative church and the pastor of the congragation had what I would call a rock star level of tatoos. He had tatoos
all over his neck and arms and he had so many it kind of distracted from the message.

I see tatoos on lady professionals and lady MD's. It is pretty normative in my town in the south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our pediatrician briefly had a receptionist with multiple piercings (nose, eyebrow, lip), many tattoos, and strangely colored hair (this was 10 years ago, long before the current trend, which I think is odd). I thought it an bizarre choice, and was happy when she was no longer there. It is about being in a position of a role model, and sorry not sorry, but tattoos and piercing are not what I want as a role model for my children.
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agreed

[Anonymous]

The majority of Americans between 30 and 39 have tattoos (https://www.statista.com/statistics/259601/share-of-americans-with-at-least-one-tattoo-by-age/). And those who believe that “It should be forbidden for representatives of certain professions to have (visible) tattoos” are in the extreme minority —15 percent of those 65 and older, 7 percent of those 18 to 29 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/722508/tattoos-statements-agreement-of-americans-by-age/). Also, “More than 70 percent of parents said they were comfortable with tattoos on camp counselors and teachers” (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-tattoos-at-work-0812-story.html%3foutputType=amp).

So, hand wring if you want about tatoos, but that puts you squarely in an uptight minority.

Also, if we’ve had tattooed world leaders (Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Justin Trudeau) and plenty of tattooed business executives, your kid is going to be exposed to body modifications one way or another (and still turn out fine).