I start my first teaching placement next week. So yesterday I got my hair-cut. Over the past few months I've been picking up a suitable(ish) teachers' wardrobe on Ebay. It feels that I am in the process of crossing some sort of Rubicon.
I'm not sure why this seems like a big deal - but I suppose it is about taking on a new persona - a persona of 'authority'. Which is ironic because in reality as a student teacher I will have very much less authority than I did as a manager in my old life. I might not have sought it, I might not ever have been comfortable with it, and I might have tried to play it down, but undeniably I was the boss. And all in a not a particularly worthwhile cause; making money for the owner of the business - and even worse - helping the arsehole clients making even more money for theirs. That I could do so whilst dressed in the same clothes that I wore at the weekend and in the funky comfort of a Soho was scant consolation.
So I suppose - much as Henry of Navarre thought Paris was worth a mass - then doing something more worthwhile may be worth a second-hand collar and tie. But even so when I catch myself in the mirror it still looks like someone else.
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