This newspaper article gives me hope for this generation. The school being discussed is in New York – it is an idea that Southerners need to pick up on.
About a month ago, Fox Lane High School Principal Joel Adelberg looked out his office window next to the parking lot and noticed some school seniors were dressed up as if heading to a job interview.
Students had on ties and tucked-in dress shirts.
Adelberg was noticing the start of “Gentleman’s Tuesday,” where boys trade in their jeans, sweatshirts and T-shirts for formal garb such as blazers, slacks and ties.
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Gabrielson, a Bedford Hills resident, said the effort is “bringing class to class.” It goes beyond the ties, sports jackets and dress shoes. The idea is also to hold doors and shake hands instead of slapping high fives.
“I think it was kind of an innate reaction,” Gabrielson, said of adding a layer of manners to the Tuesday dress code.
During an interview in Adelberg’s office, Faitell looked out the window and spotted a fellow student coming into school looking more like he went to prep school than public.
“There are so many kids who are doing it now, I think probably about 40 to 50 guys doing it,” said Faitell, a Pound Ridge resident. “It’s just become like a whole different thing. Our whole motto behind it is we’re not only looking fancy or dressing well but we hold doors, we speak properly — no high fives, only shaking hands.”
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After the interview, Swift held the door for a reporter and photographer leaving the principal’s office.“By doing this, we’re sort of, although doing a very small part, we’re still bringing a little bit more (civility) into the world,” Swift said of the Tuesday trend.
And a quick walk through the school library shows that spirit has spread. Gregg Goldberg, a senior, was wearing a grey corduroy suit jacket, purple shirt and black tie.
“You don’t need to go to a fancy school to dress nicely,” said Goldberg, who lives in Bedford.
Oliver Silzer, another senior who had on beige pants, a white dress shirt and sneakers, said his outfit was “mixing in the casual with the professional.”
“They’re a little classier than your average pair of Nikes,” Silzer, a Pound Ridge resident said of his Ralph Lauren Polo shoes.
Adelberg is clearly pleased by the trend the four seniors started.
“It’s a creative idea,” the principal said. “That’s nice so many of their classmates have gotten into the same spirit.”
Thanks for the support! It died out in my high school after we left but for a couple months people really did behave better towards one another (at least on tuesdays.) It was an interesting experiment to be a part of.
It’s a real pleasure to hear from you, sir!
Do you know how that got started? I’d guess that it is similar to what happened where I once worked. I was an Industrial Engineer at a defense electronics plant (we made an air-launched device that the Navy uses to track and locate submarines). The standard clothing was a golf shirt and jeans. The girls working on the assembly lines had a tradition of dressing up the day or two before Christmas. The man I worked with on our line said, “we ought to dress up ourselves,” so we both decided to wear a dress shirt and tie. The reactions we got were so positive that we just decided to continue. When I left there several years later, that had become the standard – almost all of the Industrial Engineers were wearing a dress shirt and tie. All it takes is for someone to take the lead.
Again, thanks for stopping by!