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My educators at Stuyvesant High in Lower Manhattan may have been like Torie Anderson at heart, though we never saw it.
"I'm no longer trying to fit into anyone's idea of what a teacher should look like," the Detroiter says during a recent presentation (video below), explaining an appearance that suits her style and individuality, not expectations.
"My nose is now pierced. I'll probably change the color of my hair. Because now I realize that the way I look has no impact on my effectiveness as a teacher."
Anderson teaches English at Davis Aerospace Technical High School on the east side, part of Golightly Career and Tech Center. The public school district complex on Dickerson Avenue in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood includes an aviation maintenance and piloting curriculum certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, in addition to standard academics.
Torie Anderson: "I cried the entire way home." (Facebook photo)
Anderson was among four speakers at an annual two-hour Tale of the Teacher storytelling event first held in 2016. The location was MusicTown Detroit, inside Hockeytown Cafe downtown, and the theme was "what teachers really think."
The Davis Aerospace representative -- who says several times that "I love my job" -- is frank as she recalls chain-yanks earlier in her career from administrators who wanted her to dress more conservatively or cover her arm tattoos.
Erin Einhorn, Chalkbeat Detroit bureau chief, writes at the education news site:
Anderson recalled a story from her first job out of college when, working in a [Metro Detroit] charter school, a principal scolded her for wearing shorts that revealed too much leg at a school football game.
"I cried the entire way home," she said.
"I remember being told that I was a unicorn in a profession full of elephants. I was told that I needed to find a way to be an elephant/unicorn hybrid, as if such a thing could even possibly exist."
Four schools later, Anderson embraces her identity proudly. "I no longer give a fuck what people think of my tattoos. . . I’m a fucking unicorn," she says in the video below of her six-minute remarks Oct. 6.
-- Alan Stamm
