A New Mexico Teacher Decides to Wear a Tie to School

In this Education Week article, Western New Mexico University/Gallup professor Scott Farver remembers trying to decide whether to wear a necktie when he was a fifth-grade teacher in a high-poverty school. When he wore one, students commented on how dressy he looked and one colleague asked, “Isn’t that a bit much for here?”

But Farver wasn’t deterred. “I felt more professional,” he says. “I felt more important. I felt like my students felt like they were more important.” He ended up wearing ties for the rest of the year.

At one point, Farver had his students write letters to President Obama about bullying and teen alcohol abuse – issues that were very much on their minds. To everyone’s surprise, they received a letter from the White House and a follow-up phone message saying that the president would like to stop by the school if he was in the area. 

This got Farver thinking: if the president really did visit the school, people would dress up. “If I wore a tie for an important person like the president of the United States but not for my students, what kind of message would that send? If I did not wear a tie, did that mean they were unimportant? … We dress up for important people and events. We dress up for presidents. My students are important. Every day of school is important, as important as if the president were visiting.” 

“So I wear a tie,” says Farver, his school clothing choices changed for good. “I shine my shoes. I get haircuts. I try to reflect [my students’] value by what I wear, how I speak, and how I behave. When I enter a classroom, I think about how I look because I want my students to know they are important, as important as a president.” 

“About the Necktie” by Scott Farver in Education Week, Oct. 31, 2012 (Vol. 32, #10, p. 21), www.edweek.org 

From the Marshall Memo #459