You probably do not have the bandwidth now to deal with the question of how to appear optimally groomed for your students.
Many of us face very uncertain job prospects (e.g., adjuncts, graduate students in teaching positions, people on VAPs). Many of us need to juggle homeschooling our kids, not something we conceived we would need to do, with full-time teaching and research. And then there is also the weird guilt that we can at least work from home, and still have jobs. You probably thought, in light of all this, that it was fine to just try to get to the end of this semester.
Kristie Kiser thinks that's wrong. We should keep up the brave facade and not slacken, for the sake of our students, "Our students are our clients, and we must exhibit professionalism". As she writes
"We’re all guilty. We’ve read the social media posts, deliberated about it on discussion boards and rather earnestly adopted it: the misguided philosophy that we should present ourselves as ordinary people during this time of crisis to be more relatable to our students. It is baffling how the definition of “ordinary” somehow became bastardized, now representing something different — something less organized, less professional, less … hygienic".
Now, maybe other disciplines are very different but if our students came to class at all, they would know that professors are pretty ordinary folk. I can't speak to unwashed, but judging by departmental meetings I do know that we regularly come to meetings "overly casual and ill prepared".
I am reminded of this story in Zhuangzi, chapter 21 (translation adapted and shortened): At an interview of Zhuangzi with duke Ai of Lu, the duke said, 'There are many scholars in Lu; but few of them can be compared with you, Sir.' Zhuangzi replies, "there are few scholars." The duke disagrees: "Everywhere in Lu you see men wear the scholar's robes – how can you say there are few?" But Zhuangzi retorts "superior people who have this knowledge will not be found wearing the robes, and it does not follow that those who wear the robes possess the knowledge. If your Grace think otherwise, why not issue a notification through the state, that it shall be a capital offence to wear the dress without possessing the knowledge?" Perhaps unsurprisingly, only one person was found who still wore the robes.
I honestly think our students are smarter than Kiser thinks, and that they, like Zhuangzi, realize we do not need to wear scholarly robes (or the modern equivalent, whatever it may be??) to be professionals. Moreover, our students are not clients, and we are not their patrons.
It is useful to think about what we can do for our students, and the Cocoon has hosted a lot of thoughtful pieces that–if you have the energy and time, I would not fault people for just trying to make it to the end of semester–you can peruse. So for example Audrey Yap examines whether and how people might incorporate the pandemic into their teaching. Our teaching transition series has many excellent posts, including on how to make a course asynchronous (better for students), how to do more handholding and clear signposting, and low-stake assignments, when teaching remotely (e.g., Mary Beth Willard).
Some of us will be able to incorporate this advice mid-semester while improvising lots of things. Some of us turn out to have the gift of making really cool online videos. That's great, but it's totally understandable if the transition to online teaching is not smooth for you or your students. If you do want to go the extra mile then I think practicing benevolence and compassion, having realistic standards for work and reaching out to students who might be struggling takes priority over making sure your dog appears well-groomed if it accidentally comes into view in your Zoom meeting.
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