Invest in a quality wardrobe. Make sure your clothes suit you in cutting and are comfortable. Clothes that hang too loose or reveal sexy cleavages do not create a professional image unless you’re aiming to distract your students by focusing their attention on your breasts. Make sure the colours of your clothes coordinate well. Hairstyle should be up-to-date and look well-kempt. Looks are not everything but grooming is. You don’t have to look like Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears, but looking in and up-to-date is part and parcel of retaining your fidgety students’ attention.
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Modern Etiquette of the Professional Teacher

Young people today are exposed to the latest fads and fashions in clothes, a variety of make-up techniques, glamorous actors and actresses on screen as well as relentless pressure by the media to look beautiful and sexy. As a teacher, it is sometimes hard to compete against this huge tidal challenge or to live up to the youngsters’ expectations. School often times feel like a ponderous and ancient institution which grinds slowly out of the prehistoric age when the rest of the world are already into broadband and G-strings. Teachers cannot hope to retain their students’ attention without an attractive and up-to-date appearance – perhaps a makeover expert is called for besides the school counselor or teacher assistant.

Be courteous to your client. Gone are the days when teachers shout at students for not doing their homework or coming to class late. Though the customer is wrong, in this instance, the teacher has to be tactful to protect the young student’s fragile esteem and the teacher’s own dignity. Let the student know the consequences of his/her action, deliver the first or second warning, and carry out punishment if necessary. Do what you have to do in a firm but friendly manner. If the students provoke you, do not jump into anger. Teachers have to be cool to be accepted.

Be prepared to talk about sex education when approached, but don’t engage in sexual acts with your students. Remain detached and professional but be there to share the facts when needed. The teacher was seen as all-knowing and the dispenser of knowledge in the past. Well, if teachers don’t know about oral sex, sex-enhancing drugs, fellatio, homosexuals, herpes, AIDS, abortion, and anal sex, amongst others, how are they to convince the youngsters that what they are teaching is worth knowing. If teachers don’t talk the language of these students, how are they to protect them from date rape, teenage pregnancy or sexual diseases? Teachers don’t necessarily have to experience it all, but they need to know the issues that young people are grappling with in this modern society.

Well, societies are changing faster than schools or teachers. The role of the professional teacher is still the same: to stimulate the senses, impart knowledge, instill discipline, and make students think and differentiate between what is right and wrong. But the ways to achieve these must be very different.