School uniforms have their advantages. They can promote school spirit, and they can put the focus back on learning. However, there are tremendous disadvantages and things we are failing to see where school uniforms are concerned.
School is a place where we try and teach our students to think for themselves. What kind of message are we sending our young people if we tell them exactly what to wear? As noted educator, Barbara Coloroso would say we send a message to children that says, "think for yourself, think for yourself, but the underlying message is you really ought to listen to me." She believes we would better served by dividing our children's clothes into the two categories of school clothes & after school clothes and saying to them these are your school clothes pick out something to wear for school tomorrow. What did does this have to do with the debate over school uniforms?
School uniforms are a Band-Aid for a larger problem. The responsibility for what children wear should not be with the school. It should be with the parent and ideally with the student. We need to place the responsibility back where it belongs on the parents and the children. If school uniforms are needed because what some students are wearing is deemed "too revealing" there is a problem. First, we are making the school responsible for enforcing a certain level of morality and who is to say my morality is your morality? Instilling morality in children can be and is best done in only one place and that is the home. It is too dangerous to suggest otherwise. I have seen children sent home for wearing clothes that were deemed "offensive" by one teacher yet were not by other teachers. This situation where one person or a small group decide the morality of a larger one is much too dangerous.
School uniforms it is said will turn students' attention away from what others are wearing to their schoolwork. Students if taught in such a way that what they are learning is made relevant for them will pay attention regardless of what their peers are wearing. A brief aside, it is interesting that ergonomic experts have recognized that the more comfortable we are, the more productive we are. Where else do you think casual Fridays at the office came from? Ask yourself, the last time you wore that suit or dress were you more comfortable than you normally are if you are wearing your favorite pair of jeans or plaid pajamas? Now think about how students will feel wearing a sweater and slacks in a poorly ventilated classroom while sitting in desks that are probably older than they are.
It is said that school uniforms will help parents and children from lower socio-economic situations feel less ashamed about the clothes they wear. On an Alberta call-in radio show, I heard a discussion about one public school thinking about making school uniforms mandatory. It was going to cost $1200 over three years to cloth each child in contemporary, comfortable school uniforms. It was suggested that this would lessen the burden felt by parents of lower socio-economic situations who cannot afford to buy their children the latest in Tommy Hilfeger fashions. What parent from a lower socio-economic background could afford $1200 over three years? Advocates of school uniforms point to how it will make all the students look the same and how you will not be able to tell the poorer students from the more affluent students. Regardless of school uniforms or no, you will still be able to tell the poorer students from the more affluent students. The more affluent students will come to school each day with brand-new looking, and neatly pressed uniforms. The poorer students, whose parents both have to work will come to school with worn, perhaps torn, school uniforms because their parents cannot afford to buy replacement uniforms or cannot afford the time to spend washing, ironing and sewing their child's uniform because they both had to work to make ends meet.
To repeat, school uniforms just cover-up the problems in society, problems such as, the problems of wealth redistribution, and poverty. School uniforms place the responsibility for enforcing a common morality on schools when morality is better taught at home.
hat do trench coats and tank tops with spaghetti straps have in common? Both are items of clothing, of course, but both items have also re-ignited the debate over school uniforms. Some individuals claim that if Klebold and Harris had gone to a school that required them to wear school uniforms, then the tragedy in Columbine, Colorado could have been prevented since it would have made it that much more difficult for them to carry concealed weapons. Then you have the case of Langley Student, Sarah Park, who wore a tank top with spaghetti straps to school, and was asked to go home and change because the tank top was said to be "too revealing."
we send a message to children that says, "think for yourself, think for yourself, but the underlying message is you really ought to listen to me."
regardless of school uniforms or no, you will still be able to tell the poorer students from the more affluent students
Jeremy Baillie is an Elementary Education major and a regular contributor to canadian content.
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