From the hours of 8:15-3:00, yes, there is some stemming of individual expression. But outside of those hours and on the weekends, liberty and freedom can ring unabated.
I’d argue that individual expression is a subjective thing anyway. Most kids are merely copying what’s trendy and popular when they put their outfits together. They aren’t expressing individuality but rather conformity. The kids who want to be unique, or who can’t afford to be anything other than unique, are typically the ones who are oppressed–not by the school, but by their more conformist peers. So there is something to be said for everyone receiving the “oppressive” treatment versus only a minority. At any rate, likening a strict dress code to oppression is quite eye-rolly. I really wish we could reserve that kind of terminology for something that actually matters in the grand scheme of things.
All the public school uniforms I’ve seen allow girls to wear pants.
I think boys should be allowed to wear pants and skirts as well. It’s funny how few people ever seem to worry about their “oppression” in this respect.
Absolutely vital, kids are competitive enough the last thing schools need is the distraction of poor kids being emasculated by not being hip enough, and their parents forced to commit more than the family can afford.
School is about equality of opportunity, lets stick with that, there’s plenty of scope for personal expression in arts classes.
Can be a great thing in some communities for a reason not listed… poverty.
In Mrs Iggy’s hometown in Colombia poverty is rampant. Poverty on a level rarely seen in the States. Yet school kids all have uniforms. Basic khakis and a polo seems to be the standard. No jackets or ties. Skirts are optional.
Stores all know exactly what to stock and school uniforms are the closest thing clothing-wise I have ever seen as a loss leader. Shops compete. Prices are low. The one sticking point is shoes, but the shops even compete on those.
Uniforms are consistent year-to-year for the same school. So even as kids grow there are gently used school uniforms available in resale shops.
In that environment even kids from families from the lowest poverty level (e.g. homes with dirt floors, no electric, and no running water) can come to school and not stand out.
I am in favor of school uniforms for several reasons.
I went to one of the top prep schools in the country. Without uniforms, clothes would have been a distraction at best and at worst a constant tit for tat warfare over money and status. Uniforms removed that from the equation. Since the school served a wide variety of socio-economic strata, this was appreciated. We knew who had money, but we didn’t have to deal with it in calculus class. Within the gates, academics reigned.
Poverty. My sister teaches at a school where many of the students are from very poor homes. Limiting the dress codes eases the burden of the pocketbooks of those families.
Areas with high gang activity. A uniform reduces conflict in the school. No one is wearing colors, because everyone is wearing the same thing (at least that’s the hope).
School dress codes are stupid. Plain and simple stupid. They are nothing more than a way to try and avoid a serious conversation about differences in economic class, and how to handle dressing for success in real life.
I say this as a teacher who has taught in schools that had them, and schools that didn’t.
As for neckties, I will simply say that I’ve worn a necktie in all my jobs as an adult (lawyer, department store manager (three mercifully brief years with Dillard’s), and teacher). Yes, I wore a necktie almost every day in my job as high school teacher. I maintain to this day that it earned me a respect from the students that wouldn’t have as easily been earned had I not worn one. But, that doesn’t mean every male teacher had to wear one. Still, anyone who is unhappy about wearing them probably is wearing shirts with collars that are too small, or is tying them too tightly, because a necktie is no more uncomfortable or difficult to wear than anything else, done properly.
Theoretical conversation about economic class are very nice. they do not change the lives of the students.
My children school has a simple dress code, it is not expensive, only the polo shirt and the tan pants, and different colors for the shirt depending on the grade bands. It is useful in a school where otherwise the class differences could show very strongly.
The simple uniform in this style, I think it is a positive for the helping of some leveling in a society with the classes.
of course the american society has other values maybe
I see it as comparable to a ban on gay marriage: no one can show why liberty should be constrained. How does a mandatory uniform help anything? How does it make anyone’s life better? If you’re going to take away our freedom, you must have a VERY good reason for it.
You must be quiet in the library? Damn good reason. You can’t go to class nude? Excellent reason.
You must wear black pants, white shirt, and a tie? WTF?
I’m mighty glad to hear it; when I was a youngker (and the Stanley Steamer was hep) girls had to wear skirts, no matter how damn cold it was outdoors.
Even when there is a very specific school uniform, it will be very clear who has money and who hasn’t. Kids are not stupid. In the uniform alone, they can tell who is wearing their older sibling’s hand-me-downs, who has newer (or more) school uniforms, and who gets everything dry-cleaned more frequently. There’s also still watches, jewelry, bags, and I’m assuming today wearable electronics. If the reason to have uniforms is to take class differences out of the classroom, it’s a failed solution.
I’m the parent of two small children, who will be attending primary school shortly. And I went to Catholic school through high school.
I don’t think uniforms are a bad idea at all. I wore a uniform in grammar school (as Catholic school students generally did, at least in that era). Friends who didn’t have told me about the status stuff they encountered. Not so much in the early years, but by the time they were in seventh or eighth grade, it was there.
I didn’t have to wear a uniform in high school (my school was a bit unusual in that respect), but everyone I knew at other schools did, including my brothers and sister. I can’t remember anyone minding, or even thinking about it all that much. Again, the competitive and status aspects of dressing were absent (probably especially true since everyone I knew attended single-sex high schools).
As a parent, I have to say it will make my life much, much easier if my kids have to wear uniforms to school.
No, there actually is a practical reason that has nothing to do with that:
Many of the LAUSD campuses in central L.A. have opted (meaning the parents have opted) for uniforms, to avoid the temptation of gang color affiliations–especially in the middle schools. From everything I’ve heard it helps a lot.
And they’re not really uniforms. Just dark bottoms and white tops. They don’t have to buy anything from a particular vendor.
My mother loved the uniform I had to wear to school. We had very little money, so this saved her from having to buy a full second school wardrobe for me. When I came home from school, I was supposed to take off my uniform, hang it up, and put on play clothes.
There was also quite a bit less of one girl mocking another about her clothes. We were both in navy jumpers and white blouses. The jumpers may not have all come from the same store, but they were identical enough that I didn’t feel like an outsider.
I don’t see anything wrong with them. There ae enough hours in the day to differentiate yourself from your peers, so six hours in a blue jumper didn’t kill me.
I went to a school with a ridiculously strict school uniform, my mother hated it, as did several of the teachers and all the students.
Almost every part of it was only available from one specific, very expensive, shop, and they absolutely would call in parents because a student came in wearing a skirt that was made with the wrong number of panels (not a joke, happened to a friend).
It was a girls’ school, and it was skirts only, with the sole exception that the Muslim students (of which there were 2, out of over 1000) in the school were permitted one specific type of trousers as well as the regulation skirt. So there was a uniform trouser, we just weren’t allowed to wear it.
It had a tie.
I was once publicly berated by a teacher for having a 2mm thick hair elastic in a shade she deemed to be royal blue instead of navy.
They not only insisted on white shirts, but they were not allowed to have pockets, even though a jumper (featuring the school crest) was supposed to be worn over them at all times, rendering said pocket invisible.
There was a uniform blazer, which was worn by about 10% of first years for the first day, 2% for the first week, and 0% from then on, at which point they were stored by annoyed parents until they could be sold to the next year’s mugs. The school still maintained that they were part of the uniform that should be owned by all students.
I don’t, in theory, object to a school uniform, but being subjected to that level of lunacy for 7 years has left me somewhat cynical about the whole thing.
Even my niece’s all-girls catholic high school allows the girls the option to wear pants instead of a skirt. Very few choose to, but it’s allowed.
And on the whole, I think that uniforms (or similarly-strict dress code) aren’t all positive, but they’re more positive than negative. It makes it easier to pick out dress code violations without having to worry about subjectivity, it prevents the wearing of gang colors, it decreases bullying over clothes, and it reduces the stress of deciding what to wear (admittedly not the largest source of stress for an adolescent, but every little bit helps).
