These days the type of thing that counts as fashionable is enough to make you wish for a staff uniform. Watching your students flock to every new trend from Instragram is one thing, but what about trendsters in your teaching ranks?

Here are five ways to spot a trendy teacher (and why their look might not have the intended effect in school).

1. Owl-eyed spectacles
   Trendy teachers think their circular frames help them to appear wise and erudite. But their pupils think otherwise and have taken to drawing lightning bolts on whiteboards and referring to said teacher as “the boy who lived”. (Yes, this is a Harry Potter reference.)
   
   
   
   
    
2. Skinny anything
   Suit jacket, tie, trousers… The only thing that the trendy teacher is really proving by wearing skintight garments is that they’ll never touch the cookies or cake in the teachers’ lounge. Buzzkill.
   
   
   
   
    
3. Tattoos
   School policy usually dicates that tattoos are hidden from sight, but your trendy teacher will have gone out of their way to roll their sleeves up just a tad too high so their ink is partially visible. They tend to combine this with tales of spiritual moments in Thailand. Both tattoos and “moments” in Thailand are fine on their own, but both shoved in students’ faces? Who’s teaching who, teach??
   
   
   
   
    
4. Coiffured facial hair
   Well-groomed facial hair (and manbuns) will always impress prepubescent students. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the rest of the adult staff, who associate facial hair more with 1970s TV stars and fuzzy memories of uncles than celebrities. There is no irony here, just mild confusion.
   
   
   
   
    
5. Impractical shoes
   Fashionable footwear may enhance a trendy teacher’s look, but there’s nothing more amusing than watching them struggle to remove a discarded sandwich from their five-inch heel while on break.
   
   
   

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