I do not understand dresscodes...

[Revedge]

*Originally posted by JavaMaven1 *
[
"TRANIO
See not your bride in these unreverent robes:
Go to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIO
Not I, believe me: thus I’ll visit her.

BAPTISTA
But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIO
Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha’ done with words:
** To me she’s married, not unto my clothes:**
Could I repair what she will wear in me,
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
But what a fool am I to chat with you,
When I should bid good morrow to my bride,
And seal the title with a lovely kiss!"

Taming of the Shrew Act III, Scene 2

**

I think that you have missed the whole point of this quote. It is not the clothes, but the person inside of the clothes that matters. Why should administrators worry about the clothes students wear, and not the student inside?

I lived next to a school district that had a “No hair touching the collar” hair policy. They suspended a six year old boy for having long hair. His parents had let him grow it out to cover a deformaty of his head that other students had made fun of. The parents sued but were forced to cut his hair to get him back in school. (Pasadena Independant School District in Texas sometime in the mid to late seventies.) What purpose did this serve? It is such unresonable adherence to rules that make younger people lose respect for authority.

My school district on the other hand had very little in the way of dress codes. “No tank tops. No beards. No see through blouses.”

Guess which district had the higher test scores? I had a 1300 on my SAT test and I was barely in the top quarter of my class. (Which numbered around 750)

Our district cared more about what the student achieved than how he or she looked.

[JavaMaven1]

*Originally posted by Revedge *
**I think that you have missed the whole point of this quote. It is not the clothes, but the person inside of the clothes that matters. Why should administrators worry about the clothes students wear, and not the student inside?
**

I fully understand the point of the quote. If you read the paragraph before the quote, I said:

When did dressing become such an important form of self-expression and personal freedom? What happened to all the other forms of personal expression?

I believe in dress codes, but when did this really become such an arguable point of the repression of self-expression? What expression is there in wearing a bikini top or having your pants halfway down your ass in school (considering the OP’s argument he clearly states no beachwear or exposed private parts)? It bothers me that something so trivial as a basic dress code would have a student body “in shambles” (again, as mentioned by the OP). Honestly, is there real harm to a student’s personal freedom to ask them to wear a shirt that covers the midriff, to pull up their pants, or not wear a hat inside the classroom? Wouldn’t it be to the student’s benefit to figure out how to wear exactly what they want and convey the message they wish to convey within the rules?

Of course administrators should worry about the student himself, and not by the clothes he wears. So why this particular uproar over a dress code when the energy could be focused on how the school’s budget doesn’t allow for a music program, or a debate club, or a gymnastics program? My point is, that there are a thousand other ways for a child to express himself, so why is a dress code such a debatable issue?

[vanilla]

DDG, I think it would be a cool idea then to go to a PTA meeting in cargo pants, a baseball cap, and spaghetti strap top!
When I was in elementary school, the girls were not allowed to wear pants!
This was ridiculous, as skirts would cause a lot more interest by the boys than pants.
A few of us wore them in June, but were sent home.
After we graduated, they allowed pants. Huh.

[Xerxes]

*Originally posted by SexyWriter *
**But on the other hand, school is not a funeral, wedding, or one of those certain jobs. It’s not a branch of the military or a government agency. It’s a PUBLIC school. Paid for by the tax payers of the state. People send their children to such schools because they are choosing NOT to send them to private or military schools where such rules exist.

**

If sending kids to private/military schools generally costs money (over and above what it costs to send them to public school) then I’d say that a lot of parents (lower-income) simply don’t have that choice.

**
Presumably, the parents are bright enough to decide what kind of clothes to allow their teenagers to wear.**

I can’t comment too much on what happens in the US school system, since I live in the UK, but I can comment that some parents, particularly in low-income households, have to struggle very hard to equip Junior with the latest, greatest Nike/Adidas/You-name-it gear. And, like fashions, the fact you’ve just forked out the equivalent of a weeks’ worth of grocery shopping for this ‘anti-bully’ footwear will mean nothing in a few months.

I’m not a parent of a teenager, so I can’t comment on that experience, but I have been one, and I can say that although my parents were smart, my sister and I would win some battles not on logic, but attrition. I’m not proud of it, but I’d be surprised if similar tactics are not in use by the teenagers of today.

**
The argument that this is “preparing kids for the real world” is crap. In the real world, I have to decide what’s appropriate on my own. There are no “pants police” in my office. Though, the fun police do occasionally show up.
**

I agree. School (at least in my experience in the UK) is not the real world. Or anything like it.

[Initial_Entry]

*Originally posted by flodnak *
More proof that there’s nothing new under the sun: A bunch of guys in my senior high school class wore skirts one day for just these reasons. I graduated in '87.

You didn’t happen, by some strange coincidence, to have attended Manheim Township High School in SE Pennsylvania, would you? 'Cause some boys there did the same thing, same year! (I didn’t go to Twip, but it was in the newspaper…)

I seem to remember that the school administration actually came to their senses a little and said that shorts and skirts were okay as long as they were no more than so-and-so far above the knee, or something. Of course, this was back in the eighties, when people still believed high school students had more rights than prisoners :rolleyes:
**
[/QUOTE]

I went to that cess pit. A few years back, think about 4 years, a student tried that. The administration made him change. As I recall they couldn’t actually punish him, as it wasn’t against the rules, but they could make him change clothes. (??) He came in about a week later wearing the dress again. (This time they let him wear it almost half the day. Man I’m glad I got out of there)