teacher

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Stacie Lewis about dress codes for teachers.

One of my friend's children started school last week and was stunned upon meeting the teacher to find her teetering on stilettos. The teacher was, shall we say, more appropriately dressed for clubbing than a first-grade classroom. Her skirt was very short; the kind of skirt that makes it near impossible to squat down next to a five-year old without revealing more than the secret to long division.

Is this teacher a rarity? I am a teacher and I have seen it myself. Many times. Admittedly, some of the women have been amazing teachers. Amazing teachers with a very liberal approach to the dress code.

Related: 5 Lessons From Kourtney Kardashian's Birth Video

This past summer, as the temperature rose quite a few skirts rose as well — along with a few eyebrows. At my school, all female staff were gently reminded that there was a school dress code and it should be adhered to. Our dress code for women: no spaghetti strap tops or dresses, dresses/skirts of a reasonable length, no see-through or very low cut tops and no flip-flops.

My 2012 teaching self says, "Yes, that sounds right." My 2000 teaching self says, "It's hot. I'm wearing spaghetti straps and some flip-flops!" I wore jeans every day to work in my first teaching placement. Oh yeah, and a tongue piercing. That stayed in for five years and I never once heard a complaint (to my face).

Today, I go to work every day in a dress or skirt. I'm short so I wear heels. Usually a wedge of some sort. This places my teacher look firmly in the "smart" category.

I would never try to look sexy at school. I would never dress like I used to dress back in 2000. And, I'm old enough and conservative enough (and prudish enough?) to wonder why any teacher would.

Which of the following teacher looks would you be happiest to see? And, do we judge a teacher by the length of their skirt or the quality of their teaching?

More great reads from BabyCenter:
Do kids belong in bars?
How many children complete your family?
The very silly secret to getting your kids to eat kale
6 things every new mom needs in her closet
My most embarrassing pregnancy moment — ever

• Help! I have a crush on my English professor — Très Q+A
• Could a change in diet cure PMS? — MyDisfunkshion
• 10 changes to improve my love life — Rules to Live By
• I can't get along with gay men — The Enchanted Life
• Building intimacy in any relationship, platonic or romantic — Group Therapy

If you think long and hard about the people who made lasting influences in your life, I'm sure several teachers will pop up. It's funny how no matter how many years go by, I still remember the one or two encouraging statements from teachers that have changed the course of my life. Dan Brown, a high school teacher in Washington DC and author, is empowering lives every day, one student at a time.

SavvySugar: How did you get into this?

Dan Brown: Well, I first became a teacher straight out of college in 2003. I got into it sort of by accident, I was in film school at NYU. I wasn't studying to be a teacher. As I was nearing graduation, it became clear that if I wanted to stay in New York City and pay the rent, I needed to get a real job. At least for the next few years. So I joined a program called the New York City Teaching Fellows, which is like Teach For America where it takes people who don’t have a background in education and gives them a provisional certification. It basically throws them into the toughest schools where there are shortages of qualified teachers. So this appealed to me because my mom was a teacher, and I was always interested to work with kids. This was also about a year and a half after 9/11 so I was feeling very interested in doing something for New York. So I signed up, and it was the toughest year of my life, but also opened my eyes to how rewarding and thrilling being a teacher is.

To hear more about why teaching is rewarding, read on.