Why are we still scared of tattooed teachers?

I was shocked recently by a photograph I took with my two grown-up children. Let’s get in the natural daylight, I said. That will be good. They both looked great – they always do. But I looked washed-out, pale, wrinkled, anaemic, baggy-eyed and, quite frankly, very very old.

It was the end of the college year so I excused myself from responsibility for the mess I saw before me on the grounds of academic enervation. Still, I must admit I carry the marks of a lifetime in my face these days; crow’s feet, worry lines and forehead wrinkles marking me. I stand a marked man.

It interests me how we mark ourselves. I have no tattoos, but it intrigues me that so many people do. What aspect of my inner self or being would I ever want to translate to my outer surface skin to display to the world? A tea cup, perhaps, since I am sure I am actually 80 per cent tea.

I know some tattoos are frivolous and meaningless, simple silly fun, but others have a profound resonance for people, reminding the bearer of a significant time in their life, a moment they want to recall. Or something they’re afraid to forget.

A college I know recently circulated a draft staff code of conduct for consultation, with a clause about staff tattoos. ‘Where possible’, it said, they needed to be covered up while at work. ‘Where possible’ is a tricky phrase, as it’s always technically possible. You can cover even bold facial tattoos with the judicious application of a medical mask, sunglasses, earmuffs and a broad-brimmed hat. But it might make teaching tricky. Don’t ask how I know.

The clause was finally removed and objections dropped.

A long time ago, I worked with a colleague who had a full-body tattoo. She regularly displayed her inked body as a photographic model. Good to have a side hustle, I suppose. Her students discovered this and although attendance at her classes increased, so did distraction levels as photos found online became currency.

Tattoos are an increasingly common part of British life. Gone are the days when a tattoo told the world you were a salty old sea-dog home on shore leave, or a street-toughened thug with a rap sheet as long as your needle-inked arm. Beneath those demure business suits all across the land, a whole host of inks now nestle. In America, Australia and the UK, around a third of people now have a tattoo. They are considerably more common amongst women than men. This is clearly not the tattooing your grandmother warned you about.

So what does this mean for any dress codes in teaching? Are tattoos really to be subtly sidelined, tucked away in shame, covered over like something which should be forgiven, a bad example being set to the impressionable youngsters in our care? Of course, working in the 16-19 sector, many of our students have tattoos too. And their parents often do. Asking a teacher to cover theirs up seems anomalous. Tattoos are clearly not what they were. Unless they signify some extreme political position or adherence to the yakuza, what are we really covering them up for?

But there is sometimes still a stigma surrounding ink. Tattoos are for the arty, the hipster, or – still this is sometimes thought – someone with bad judgement or a regrettable past.

I do not have any tattoos and I never will. But I’ve worked with talented, committed, professional and able teachers who have enriched students’ lives and changed their futures for the good, all while sporting a full sleeve or having some other uncovered imagery on show. It has not scandalised, disturbed or distracted anyone.

We need teachers from a range of backgrounds. We need teachers with backstories on which to draw. That is FE’s strength. And that might mean the drawing is there on the surface to be seen. Because sometimes we allow what has marked us to show. And in that there can be a lesson.

So I am left wondering what is more offensive to a student: a tattooed rose on the forearm of an art teacher or my heavily wrinkled weary old face? Personally, I know which I find more disturbing.