The Great Debate: Week 1

Something I found was that kids will always find ways to express themselves. If someone is restricted in what they are allowed to wear, would it not be possible for them to shine in other areas like arts or music?

As I was saying to someone else, it seems weird to say you can wear whatever you want but it has to fit within this dress code. To me it's almost the same as having a uniform except it would provide more room for "rebels" to attempt to wear something that pushes the boundaries of the code if not break them completely. A uniform would mean that the "rebels" would have no boundaries to push and could easily be kept in line. On the other hand saying you can wear whatever you want means people can wear offensive or explicit clothing. It's a hard line to draw.

My school banned all large buckle belts and havign a coloured tee under your polo/shirt... the next day EVERYONE had like a studded belt and a coloured tshirt on. It's not because they really want to, just because they know they cant, so they do it :3

Oh, my school uniform was a purple colour... was horrible :3

I don't understand the "everyone will be equally dressed" thing. While it's true that everyone will be equally dressed, I don't believe it will change how people treat each other. Using my experience as an example, I was never picked on for my clothes, but for everything else. Straight A's and Honor Roll? Bully Target. Interest in video games? Target. Enjoying myself? Target.

Cliques form regardless of how someone dresses because regardless of the outside, we remain who we are on the inside.

That being said, I'm merely arguing for the debate aspect, and that was the main point that seemed to pop out while perusing. If you're curious as to my view, it's a "To each their own" outlook at the moment.

When I went to school, there were no uniforms in our entire area. We wore whatever we wanted to within reason. Now to me, that's ok - as i'm not a person that determines how "cool" you are if you have/don't have the next hottest thing in HS fashion etc. Clothes never really made a difference to me. (I'm a Jeans/shirt kinda guy 1 day, and tomorrow I may throw on one of my silk ties... depends on how I feel after that first cup of coffee.)However in schools, I feel like I have two minds about uniforms in general.

1. I think its a great thing for some kids. Helps to prevent them from going into the "check dis out bobby, I gotz me da new Jordanz!" phase, which can make others feel inadequate for lack of money/fashion/etc. Sorta levels the playing field I guess.

2. It kinda does take away from individuality which quite frankly we all need. No one really likes cookie cutter people. We like to be different. In fact 99% of us STRIVE to be different. But, regardless of what clothes you wear as someone else posted above - you can still be "you" regardless of what you have on. You just aren't walking around with a personal color pallet strapped to your body.

People in my middle school still talked about each other's looks instead of clothes (had uniforms) so it sure didn't solve anything. ><;

Given it's a popular trend with schools and a few have testified to going through the same I think it's a good idea for the early years, Elementary and possibly middle, but by High School you're becoming an adult and need to learn to develop your own style and dress yourself. It's a significant way to define yourself and grow your individuality as you get older.

For the earlier years I think kids have enough to worry about along with generally wanting all the "new, cool" ***that generally kill parents to buy because it's overpriced and a fading trend. I know I definitely regret bitching and being a brat about certain things as a kid and if we didn't have uniforms in Elementary god knows what other stuff I would've wanted. I just think it's an unnecessary cost to parents and allows kids in their younger years not to worry about their status and class differences when kids are at their most brutal.

My best example? A pair of Jordan's was like $130 and those shoes were *** *** ugly and DID NOT help my jump shot in the least. lol

p.s. good idea for a topic, Elf-san, hope to see this continue!

Well when i was in high school i had to wear a light blue shirt, light blue blazer and a dreadful looking blue and yellow stripped tie. It looked ridiculous, imo i think school uniforms are silly, just because your dressed smartly isn't going to effect your ability to learn is it?

I actually questioned this to a teacher of mine and they said it's because they want you to represent the school and get you ready for the future, of when you start work to dress appropriately. Fair enough.

But when i started college i was told it's meant to be "an adult atmosphere" you can wear whatever you want :|

Never really got that tbh lol.

I guess it depends to what degree they take it, but in Elem all we had were slacks or shorts and a collared shirt with the school's emblem. A really great school in the ghetto affords these conveniences. lol

Meanwhile, while I was in Japan the other week, OMG School Uniforms!!! <3 <3 <3

Problem #1.

:P

"Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions."

lol, I can honestly say I've never seen anything where I live as far as uniforms that ever flattered the female form. ;v

i can honestly say what the *** is this thread for?

I can't speak from the wearing uniforms point of view, never had to, nor knew anyone that had to. But from what I see, basically on TV, Internet, etc. wearing school uniforms reminds me of the old star trek from the 60's. Guys all dressed the same and girls all wearing the skimpy short skirt outfits.

If you really want to enforce uniforms, at least give the girls some dignity and let them chose to wear either pants or skirts. I could totally be wrong on what these new uniforms looks like, like I said I'm just basing this opinion on what I see on the media.

As far as when I went to high school 1995-1999, this was a time where I graduated just in time. We had the basic stuff, wear what you want to wear. No obscene profanities, like ***, ***, ***, combination of any of those, and nothing racist. Belly shirts, skirts couldn't be more than an inch from you knees, etc. As long as the girls didn't dress worse than the prostitutes working the streets, most of it was acceptable.

As far as guys, the only probably they had was kids with chain wallets. But this dress code was at the discretion of whatever teacher, etc. saw it. And basically the better the teacher, etc. knew you, the less they cared.

For instance, I played football for 3 years, was a lab assistance to the computer teacher, took Honors physics, got all sorts of awards for outstanding performance in computer science classes and took 2 years of calculus in high school. Needless to say, a lot of teacher knew me. I was the Smart Jock if you want to call it that. But I also smoked pot with the other cliques, helped the geeks (you know the ones you think are smart, but aren't) with work, and helped the hot girls cheat of my tests, LOL!

So basically, I wore a chain that was moderately thick, maybe 2 feet 2.5 feet, and the only teacher that ever had a problem with me was one that didn't know me and taught remedial classes. Every time she would see me, she demanded I give her my chain. I would say no it's connected to my wallet, and there's no way you are getting my wallet. So after a few minutes of arguing she was just make me put the chain in my pocket. Then when she walked away it came back out.

The funniest part of my story was the Vice and Principle did not care at all. And for the senior year where I was lab assistance to the honors computer science / physics teacher, yeah he only taught smart kids, I had access to the front office all the time. Pretty much free use of the copier, bullshitting with the secratary (sp), even using the soda machine in the teacher lounge. No one cared, they all knew me.

It wasn't like I was sucking up to any of these people. I just talked to them like they were normal people trying to do their job. And so whereas one teacher would yell and sometimes suspend kids with chains on their sides, the same teacher would say "hi" to me and continue along. The more I just talked to them like regular people, the more they left me get away with stuff that most kids would get in trouble for, including walking of class to grab a snack, lol.

The point of telling my experience is that, well soon after I graduated, no student could ever have those benefits I had again. One year later after I graduated, cameras were installed. Dress codes were made even harsher, girls weren't/aren't allowed to skirts at all now. There's random police searches, police presence at all times. I mean the works! And this is a high school in the middle of the sticks in North Jersey in a town where our senior class was about 250 people. OF course now its almost 600-700. But wow!

The media really *** things up. You see a report or two on some whacked out kids shooting up the place, and even our most peaceful school suddenly becomes almost like a prison!

So in conclusion school uniforms, IMO, based on not having to ever wear them, isn't going to contribute a damn thing to behavior, learning process, etc. Why? Kids will just find other ways of thinking themselves as better than others. You're always going to have kids getting picked on. You're always going to have the less intelligent kids, you're always going to have cliques that think themselves better than others. DO you really thinking making them dress alike is going to correct all this? Seriously?!

This clearly shows your level of intelligence..

But to continue the debate, I think kids should wear uniform. It saves them time from not worrying about what they are going to wear the next day, and it saves them money from not having to buy a new outfit every week or two. Also, in high school, it seems like every girl wants to show off their stomach, or ***. -.- (At least the high school I went to). So sometimes, uniform is out of necessity, not just because the principle is a nazi. D:

Oh so your telling me that:



Is intelligent? are you a pedo bear?

Good job picking the one random post in the topic to pass judgment on the whole.

Thx

Hey I think I finally understand was trolling means now! ^^ Yay! (Not talking about you of course, just in case there's some confusion.)

Ya talking about yourself?

Well ill leave this thread, cause im not a socialist and in america where i live we have the freedom to dress in clothes we get to pick out ourselves.

Sorry for "trolling".

Have a good day.

So anyway back on topic, what are the benefits of school uniforms anyway that I'm not aware of. Besides the not having the buying new cloths, the assumption having everyone wear the same thing corrects behavior, etc.?

Like Miemo said on page 1, students and teachers can wear pretty much whatever they want here. I had a young teacher that wore a thong that you could see most of the time >.> I wouldn't want to wear a uniform personally, I'd wanna wear what I find comfortable and I don't believe we're all the same so why should we all dress the same.

what a fail. The country doesn't decide if you should wear uniforms. The county does. This is referring to the US of course. For example, St. Clair county BOE wanted uniforms for all the schools in the county...every voted yes to it...no one wore them therefore ending uniforms for a good 4-5 years.

One of the rules at my old school was every friday, every single girl HAD to wear a skirt even in the winter lol.

:D i like that rule

So true, except...
Thongs are good. But there's got to be a limit. I mean like in my other post which was probably a tl;dr one, but I don't think girls < 18 should be dressed sluttier than the prostitutes that work the streets is all.



It seems it's more of the religious school that want the uniforms than public school.

And yeah, the federal government cannot mandate school uniforms be worn in all schools across the country. That's the beauty of America, although over the past few years a bunch of rights have been trampled on using fear tactics. But overall wasn't America founded on the ideal that states govern themselves, and to a lesser extent the counties themselves. Federal government is to protect the country, state to protect the state, and so forth.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a piece of paper somewhere that states all this?

There are 13 year olds here that wear thongs and it's not really uncommon and no one cares anyway.

I have read a couple about this topic a while ago, so I thought I will share with you guys. Throughout history the dress code has been a social issue. During ancient civilizations, philosophers would enforce their scholars to dress different from their other peers not to enforce discipline but to represent a higher level or hierarchy among them (contrary to our modern ideal). So basically in it's roots it would represent a "better and higher" rank in society. For example in Greece, philosophers were considered a great social status since their ideals about seeking perfection enforced their intellect; and to represent this intellect they used their clothing.

On a different approach, religious also stated a different perspective about clothing. Some stablished uniforms in their schools as a way to spread humbleness and make them equals (more likely like today).

So having these two backgrounds and according to my own experience (I wore school uniforms from elementary to high school), I think it's a mix of both because it denotes a social status and it tries to stablish discipline and equity among the students. So... to stop derailing with so much info and further analysis, I would say NO, it shouldn't be enforced because time have changed and we are dragging this from the past and most of the schools have lost the significance of it.

Have a good day everyone. =)

i always liked the idea of wearing uniforms to school, keeps everyone looking presentable and i generally think non uniform makes people too social and lazy (i was from a uniform school myself).