Should Teachers Have to Follow Student Rules?

Should teachers have to follow the student rules?

I've seen just an incredible number of comments on my last couple of videos about jeans passes and about treating teachers like adult professionals and not like they are also children.

And an incredible number of the comments mentioned things like coffee, like we weren't allowed to have coffee.

at my last school because the students weren't allowed to have coffee either or we weren't allowed to wear jeans because the students had to wear uniforms.

So let me know what you think about this.

Should teachers be expected to follow the same rules that students have to follow or Is it OK to make some distinction between our expectations for staff and students because the staff are adults and students are not?

I think there's a there's a place for modeling.

There's a place for role modeling, like when it comes to, you know, what is appropriate and not appropriate.

I think obviously we want adults to model appropriate behavior and appropriate dress and things like that for students and not act like we're.

you know, not subject to the same kind of norms.

But the idea of rules applying to adults hits a little bit differently for me.

And I think especially when it comes to things like coffee, like if you told me that I could not have coffee in my classroom or when I was teaching or on campus, period, that would be a pretty hard deal breaker for me.

I would say, no, thank you.

This is a place where clearly you're not interested in treating people like adults.

I'm an adult.

I'm going to drink coffee at work.

That's a pretty normal expectation.

I think there are probably a few places where because of the nature of the job, like if you're in the operating room and you're a surgeon or a nurse, like you probably can't drink coffee while you're doing surgery, but like for most professional jobs, you can drink coffee and it is okay.

And I think this idea that like students can't, so it's not okay for adults to do it either.

Come on.

We're the adults.

Students are students.

They might not like hearing that.

I think high school students especially don't like hearing you are a student and you don't get to do all the things the adults do.

But they hear that all the time anyway.

Deal with it.

You will be an adult eventually.

You will get to drink coffee in your classroom.

Take your coffee to your college classes if you want to.

But deal with the fact that you're in high school and you're not an adult.

I think that's an okay thing to say.

And I don't think we have to totally 100% model every single rule and expectation because we are adults.

And I will say when I was a classroom teacher, we were a uniform school, but of course staff did not have to wear the uniform.

And one day I wore a hat, not a ball cap, but like a, like a, nicer hat.

And we can argue about whether that was a great stylistic choice.

But I remember my assistant principal said, hey, you know, can you not wear a hat?

Like students aren't allowed to wear hats here.

And I remember being really surprised and taken aback by that because no one had ever said like staff aren't allowed to wear hats.

So I would say it's good to be clear if you do have that expectation.

But should we even have that expectation at all that that staff should have to follow like student dress code, student expectations?

Let me know.