> I got my hair cut.
>
> How fascinating, right?
>
> So here's my question: At what point does a hairstyle become more interesting than the person wearing it? Is this just a factor of the age of student I teach? Secondary school students do tend to be very concerned with appearance.
>
> I'd be interested to know what everyone else thinks. I'm baffled.
>
> te (really wasn't a troll before) ach
>


Heh. This is exactly the reason I haven't worn my new contacts to church yet. I have 21 highly distractable seven year olds whom I teach every Sunday morning, and me showing up without my glasses would produce about a hundred questions, comments and/or exclamations even before the opening prayer. Then figure that every kid doesn't come every Sunday, so it'd probably go on for about a month until everyone got a look. Rather a waste of time, unless I can make it into some kind of object lesson to tie into the day's focus concept :-) I figure I'll just wait until they get promoted at the end of the month, and I start fresh with a new class, who won't be distracted by a sudden outward change.

....and why does it distract them so? Maybe the subject is not truly deep enough to float my theory, but here's what I think: it has to do with the whole "authority" thing. I think authority figures like parents or teachers are expected to be "constant and unchanging" --even for secondary students who consciously *know* you're a person with your own life outside school. They just didn't *think* of you that way, for the most part, until your change in hair-do reminded them of it. (Well, it's only a theory).

I do recall a sixth grade teacher at my elementary school who merely changed her part from one side to the other, and what a flurry of interest it caused (among her female students, at least).

By the way, since it's sort of related to this and to the name thread, tell me how you manage to remember all your student's names? --especially if you're teaching 5 classes a day, with say 30 students each? I have far fewer students, yet find I have to really concentrate, or I'll start calling them by each other's names or by their siblings' names (whom I've taught in previous years). One year I had a Kayla, Kaleb, Michaela, and a Michael all in the same class and it was crazy making for the first few weeks. But perhaps remembering names is just a personal weakness of mine.

koala"what was your name again?"mom