What's the dress code like for public school teachers?

So I’m moving to Taiwan in roughly one week and now have the daunting challenge of figuring out what clothes and accessories make the cut into my luggage. I’ll be teaching at a public middle school and while my recruiter said that it’s pretty casual when it comes to dress, I was hoping to hear what people on this forum might have to say about their experience. Considering that I’m a man, here are a few questions I have for those of you in the know:

  1. Are teachers typically expected to wear pants or are shorts acceptable?
  2. When it comes to footwear, will any old pair of sneakers work or must they be dress shoes? What about sandals and flip-flops?
  3. Should I bring a full on business suit and tie?
  4. Would Polo shirts or T-shirts work or do most wear buttoned shirts?
  5. Do foreign teachers generally dress worse or better than their Taiwanese coworkers?
  6. What else to expect when it comes to dressing for work at a public school?

Thank you for reading my post and hope someone can shed some light on this mundane (yet important) matter!

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Roll out of bed and show up. Don’t bother showering. Holes in your shirts are fine. Wearing your scooter pants all day is fine, etc.

Or has that just been my experience with school admin and other people at the top?

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To be actually helpful (heads up I’m a woman, but I don’t think that matters much here):

  1. Wear shorts or die. The AC isn’t usually run unless the temp outside is 30* C. Some schools ignore this rule, but keep in mind humidity makes the heat feel hotter

  2. Wear comfy footwear, anything goes. I wore Chacos a lot because if you inevitably get caught in a downpour, you can rinse them with some soapy water so they don’t stink. Athletic shoes are also great. My schools had a lot of spontaneous trips to hiking trails or pulled us into relay races and such (zero communication ahead of time on that front). At least keep a pair at your desk for emergencies (or when your other shoes are soaked from the rain. Which reminds me, invest in wool socks and keep a pair at your desk for emergencies. Dry feet = happy feet). Dress shoes are practically unheard of. Leave your leather at home unless you plan on wearing it often (mold). (Then again, idk what kinds of formal events you plan to attend. Generally even weddings are shockingly casual here). But flip-flops are a no-no!

  3. You can bring a suit and tie if you think you’ll need it. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve dressed up in the past decade. Ok, maybe two hands, but that would include my time at a wannabe prestigious school

  4. T-shirts are generally fine. Be aware of the humidity. Linen is my best friend and I embrace the wrinkles. Some polos and button ups can make you look “smart” when needed

  5. A lot of foreign teachers embrace the local “style”, while others try to look more professional. When you have government officials showing up to the office looking like they haven’t slept in days with holes in their shirts, it makes you feel awkward to be wearing a button down sleeveless top and casual skirt + chacos (for me, a woman). A lot of people live in Uniqlo puff vests through the winter. I slowly built up what I will call “fashion nature” — Patagonia and REI clothing that is supposedly for the trail, but seems more appropriate for dressing like you’re heading to the trail as opposed to actually being on the trail. That’s great clothing for this climate, which is hot and humid all summer and cold and humid all winter. I just don’t recommend slipping into looking like a slob. MOE officials will hold it against you in all of their reports if they happen to show up on a day that both pairs of shoes you have are soaked and you’re wearing blue flip flops.

  6. Don’t overthink it. Even in Taipei, most public school teachers are not dressing up in anything resembling business casual. Jeans and T-shirts are fine. Dress pants are probably over doing it but wear what’s comfortable to you. Dress for the weather. Also, unless you’re way south, be ready for a wet and cold winter. Wet cold is much worse than dry cold. Have proper clothing to accommodate that.

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Thank you nz, I couldn’t have asked for a more thorough reply!

I’ll definitely be using your advice to revise my packing list and maybe even take a trip to REI in the coming days. I have no idea where to find good linen clothes but I’ll keep an eye out for them. Once again, thank you so much.

Polo shirts. Unless you can find them for under 8 - 15 bucks there, wait until you get here and get someone to help you buy from Lativ. They also have linen shirts. NZ gives good advice up there.

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Polo shirts, slacks, sneakers are ok in some schools, other schools want brown or black leather. Best to prepare for the mandatory and work out the minimum.

Plus if you’re oversized make sure you bring clothes and shoes with you. I’m talking spare clothes. Or have someone that can buy them and send them from home. In 20 years I’m still struggling to find shoes pants and shirts that fit. If you have more than size 10 (us) feet and think you’ll need to wear leather shoes to work buy them before you come here. You will not find anything that is comfortable or fits properly in Taiwan.

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Why oh why do all these places demand I shower and wear clean neat semi formal clothes when the locals need a firehose bath before they go to work?

i disagree that shorts are fine for a teacher, unless you are a PE teacher wear pants.
Jeans or slacks are fine, as long as they are neat and clean.
Sneakers are fine as long as they are neat and clean. Sandals : ok for girls, ive never seen them on male teachers.
no t-shirts, polo shirts are fine.
Suit:not mandatory, but nice to have if you have graduaion ceremony, xmas party etc.
do foreign teachers dress better : not necessarily, dress like everyone else, some schools are more lenient than others, better to be overdressed in the beginning and gradually change your outfit than showing up in shorts and sandals and be out of sync with the rest.

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Don’t follow this rule. Chances are you’ll be hours in a classroom with no aircon, teacher’s room with no aircon and climbing stairs up and down between classes. If you enjoy swamp ass, sure. Othewise, check with your supervisor or the director of the school.

Edit: Forgot to add. You could likely be in classrooms with no fans or squeaky, broken pieces of crap that are better off than on if you want students to hear you.

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I guess this is the safest route to take. At least in Taipei I have never seen teachers in shorts (apart from PE).

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Why not split the difference?

Linen is great BTW, but men typically have fewer clothing choices so it is hard to find. I wear lightweight wool slacks (mostly tailored), with linen or silk blended when I can find it.


Lol, I called this “outdoor chic” when it was my style back in undergrad (summer job in the outdoor industry meant employee discounts and pro-deals). I noticed at my PhD uni in Canada this is also now popular with profs and administration. Vice presidents even just in comfy fleeces

Funny story, I wore a coat and tie for my data collection. Going in to interview a dean and she said, “Oh, I noticed you outside. Really stands out when someone isn’t dressed like a bum” :joy:

But yeah, Taiwan is too hot for that, even with AC in classrooms. Wear as little as you can get away with

Funny story 2, guy who replaced me at a Thai public university used to teach his classes in tight little bicycle shorts!

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We’re talking public schools. Proper international schools would be a hard no — slacks and skirts and button up shirts are very much required for real international schools. But public schools? I’ve worked in Taipei, the boonies, and Kinmen. It’s shocking how casual the workplace is in public schools. But never, ever wear flip flops. Tevas/Chacos are fine, though it’s probably better to pair those with slightly “nicer” clothes up top.

And since multiple people said no shorts ever… I mean, bring pants (slacks/trousers for you non Americans!). You will need them when winter hits anyway. But the likelihood of you suffocating in even in shorts and lightweight tops, especially right now with the mask mandates, is high. There is such thing as “nice shorts”. I’m not talking about short shorts, though the number of ahmahs who work in the schools wearing mini skirts is shockingly high.

I suggest rotating between “athleisure” and something more “formal” throughout each week, that way you aren’t known for being excessively formal all the time nor are you a “slob”. But I guarantee that by next May, you’ll be showing up in tank tops and athletic shorts every day and no one will have anything to say to you, because they’ll be suffering in the heat too.

I get a lot of my linen made on Etsy. Just make sure you filter out the Chinese shops, as your chances of getting a synthetic piece of crap instead of actual linen is much higher than if you order from a shop in, say, Lithuania, which happily threw up its middle finger at the PRC a few months back. It’s pricier than other types of clothing, but it’s nicer than a Patagonia T-shirt if you’re trying to find a balance between formality and comfort.

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I am going to agree with what Izzy said. Business casual is expected, so no shorts and no lousy t-shirts. Some nicer-looking t-shirts might be alright. Some types of nicer-looking sneakers should be fine as well. You definitely do not need a jacket, unless maybe for special functions.

Having said all this, as a foreigner there is some leeway to “breaking the rules”. If you dress in nice shorts, with a nice shirt, and decent shoes, you may get away with wearing shorts. I can definitely recommend you try this. The weather is very hot most of the time.

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Sorry, but what public schools have you been working in? I’m not saying to OP “you should dress like a slob” but it’s important to be realistic about how people who work in schools dress here.

In the US, most schools are pretty clear on the dress code — no jeans unless there’s a designated “jeans are allowed on Friday” (I had a principal send out a reminder email that “Thursday before a Friday off is not Friday” more than once), no shorts, no athletic shoes, no holes in your clothes, no T-shirts except on spirit days/if you’re head of a club/sports team that has an event that day, hair must be presentable, etc. This meant that even the PE teachers had to change their clothes before leaving the gym and venturing into the rest of the building. Then there’s always that one teacher that’s been there forever who doesn’t follow the dress code (shorts and sandals with socks when it’s snowing outside? Who am I to judge.) but the admin has given up on them and they’re usually great teachers otherwise. But Taiwan has no such rules. Or they’re not in any way enforced. This is good because, as multiple people said, there’s a good chance you’re gunna be spending a lot of the day indoors without AC. Private schools, I will reiterate, are different. But even the school I work at now said I can wear shorts as long as I’m sensible about my clothing. So, again, bring what you think you’ll need, but don’t overdo it on the formality. When I dragged my former school to the labor bureau, their lawyer showed up wearing a jacket that was too short and the black didn’t match the pants. I couldn’t take anyone on that side seriously with the appearance of their lawyer (c’mon, at least match your blacks if you’re gunna wear ‘em!), but no one else seemed to think that was out of the ordinary. Taiwan is a much, much less formal place than anywhere else I’ve been in the world. Heck, I got dragged into lunch at a five star hotel on Saturday afternoon and I was certainly not an outlier in “people who just wandered in off the street”. It was not racism that gave me a free pass.

The only time I’ve ever seen anyone from a public school wearing a jacket was at my coteacher’s wedding, when the principal showed up in a tailored suit. All school functions I went to had people show up in everything from sloppy sweatpants to button down shirts. If there were jackets, they were fleece jackets, not suit jackets. The men who bothered to iron their shirts got a lot of “looking nice!” from everyone because it was clear they’d gone “above and beyond” what was expected in terms of dress code. One time, there was a cohort of people (junior high students, administrators, teachers) from Australia. I had the common sense to wear what I wore as a teacher in the US — a nice top, an ironed skirt, formal shoes. Everyone else from the TW side looked like they’d rolled out of bed and showed up. The students from Oz were in their uniforms, the adults were all in pant suits/jackets and dress shoes. It was mostly just hilarious to me because I immediately blended in with the Australians not just because I’m white, but because I didn’t dress like everyone else from my school. After a number of years of these experiences, you start to dress like your coworkers, though hopefully you have the decency to shower a few times a month…

Hey baby. I’m here to collect some data. And to collect you for a date.

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I do not think we are really disagreeing. I just want to say that if you wear shorts you will stand out. I have not actually ever worked at any schools. My kids have gone to public school for years though.

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So your expectations are different than the reality. My co-teacher last year wore yoga pants and belly shirts most days.

Sweating like a pig in class can be more of a distraction than the fact you’re wearing shorts. Students don’t give a rats ass and staff are usually off in their own worlds.

I showed up at my first gig in slacks with a button-up shirt and felt out of place.

Maybe you just need to teach in better neighborhoods :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Not a teacher myself, but have two kids that went through kindy, elementary and junior high here and have never seen a male teacher in shorts or flipflops. And though i didnt sniff them, im sure they also shower :slight_smile:
the only thing i witnessed from what you described is wearing the uniqlo vest all the time when its “winter” regardless if its cold or not.

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Perhaps you sent your children to schools in neighborhoods where they ran the AC all day and the children never went outside? In all the public schools I’ve taught at, you’d have a tough time distinguishing between PE teachers, academic teachers, and maintenance crew based on the way ppl dressed.

I have said multiple times that flip flops are not acceptable. Sandals, on the other hand, are plenty. If you’re worried about people making a fuss about your toes, wear Keens.

There has been at least one teacher/admin at every school I’ve worked at who stunk to high hell. The heat doesn’t help this matter — for all I know they showered right before coming to work, but they sweat so much it didn’t matter. Wearing pants and long sleeve shirts makes matters worse.

Good thread.

Re: What’s the dress code like for public school teachers?

Really the students are the only ones with a “dress code”, and even then it varies from school to school and is mostly about hair or something because they all wear uniforms.

I’ve never heard of a dress code for teachers but for years at my private uni I have worn black jeans (never blue) and polo shirts and black athletic shoes (I’m male). On really hot days or when I am just sitting behind a desk listening to oral tests I wear nice shorts. When the weather gets cold I often wear black hoodies that the English Department classes make up for each class every year with their name on it. Most other teachers dress with pants and buttoned shirts or polo shirts. One guy who lasted about a year wore sloppy cotton sweats and a plain sweatshirt every day and looked worse than the PE teachers.

The divide on this thread seems to be between public and private and there does seem to be a difference. I teach classes once a week at a public high school. It has been noted the a/c can be abysmal in these schools. The first time I showed up to teach a class at one it was hot and I was in my usual jeans and polo shirt. No a/c on in September, which is summer here. I gave my standard introductory presentation and was soaked through by the end. One student finally asked “Are you hot”? At this point I learned that the students vote on whether to turn on the a/c because they pay for it with power cards. At some point I asked if I could just buy a card so I could turn on the a/c when I wanted it and they said no.

Westerners tend to sweat more (males at least I think) and just walking to the MRT and to school gets you soaked in sweat so I wear old shirts on the way to school and keep nicer ones there to change into.

One nice thing about Taiwan is people care more about what you are like than what you wear for the most part. As long as you are presentable, clothes are not real important, never mind fashion. Some students in my uni classes wear the same t-shirt all year just about.

Play it a little safe on your first couple of days and first week and look around but I would say that @nz has the most experience in public schools and has the best advice.

I’m on my way today to my public school HS classes. The forecast today is 26C/80F with humidity north of 80%. The a/c struggled in much hotter weather last week. I will be wearing shorts and a polo shirt from Gap. Maybe even my black English Department hoodie if it feels cool enough. Good luck!

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