School Uniforms

[author_by_night]

What do you guys think of school uniforms?

I used to be very much against them, perhaps partly because I went to private school and was forced to spend winter shivering in my skirt because leggings didn't do one thing to warm me up. However, I do wonder if I would have minded had we been allowed to wear pants more often.

Now I'm very conflicted.

-: It might inhibit self expression.

+: Of course, I speak as someone who rarely wore nice clothing to school until college. Meanwhile, a close friend of mine who was one of those people who'd shop at the same store for hours missed wearing a uniform and not having to worry about what she was going to wear. (Maybe she would have gotten better grades? Seriously, maybe she would have.)

+: School is a place where you're supposed to be learning.

-: School is also a place where you learn to interact with your peers, and that includes peers who might be wearing clothing you find distracting, that's more expensive or less expensive than your own clothing, or outfits that express beliefs and/or ideas you disagree with.

-: Skirts make for cold legs in the winter.

+: Schools wouldn't have to require skirts. 

Where do you guys stand? 

Comments

[victorialupin.livejournal.com]

As a kid, I hated the idea of uniforms. Actually, I'm still pretty opposed to them but I suppose I'm more rational about it. (When I was a child I used to say that I'd deliberately misbehave in class if my school decided to have uniforms; I was probably bluffing but I definitely would have resented my teachers and school and I'm sure it would have affected my school life. Maybe not academically, since I didn't work particularly hard anyway, but I admit that I was a bratty kid and I would have probably acted out in some passive-aggressive way.)

Anyway, as an adult I still really don't like uniforms. I feel like every positive attribute about uniforms doesn't really apply to most kids. A lot of people say things like "It'll prevent bullying because kids won't make fun of each other's clothing." But honestly, a kid who is a bully will just find some other trait to latch onto. People also say that uniforms will mean students won't have to worry about what to wear each morning, but in my experience plenty of students didn't worry about what regular clothes to wear and those who did were the type who would find something else to spend their time on, whether it's hair or make-up.

I've also heard the theory that uniforms will make students behavior better (through conformity? idk), but that's never made sense to me. For every student who feels more "professional" and hard-working while in a uniform, there's probably one who feels stiffled and uncomfortable. But I have to admit my own bias here: like I said, I was kind of a bratty child and while I had no problem following logical rules, I would have had an enormous problem with uniforms because, as somebody who actually never got a detention and almost never got in trouble, I would be pretty angry at being told that I had to wear a uniform just because other, poorly-behaved students had to. Even if I understand the theory in retrospect, it just would have made me resentful as a kid. (I remember how angry I was in grade five when my teacher told me that I had too many stickers on my agenda; apparently one or two, like my on my friends' agendas, was fine, but anymore than that was excessive. As a kid, it just didn't make sense to me that I wasn't allowed to decide how to decorate something that belonged to me and that didn't affect anybody else).

... *sigh* Sorry for the rambling. Anyway, I understand that other people like uniforms quite a bit and that's fine, but I suppose it bothers me when they're proposed as a solution to a problem. Ultimately, they seem like a temporary "band-aid" fix for much larger issues (bullying, poor behavior, etc).

(Side note: We had a debate on school uniforms in elementary school and my team won because I made the argument that it would make students who had to wear certain clothing for religious reasons feel isolated from others.)