| Tuesday, April 10, 2007 |
| Argument for School Uniforms |
 Imagine landing a set of front and center tickets to an NCAA Basketball Game. Only to find out that all the players boycotted uniforms and arrived wearing their own style of street clothes. No team insignia or number. No team colors. No clear means of differentiating one player from another on the opposing team.
Then to turn toward your Buddy sitting next to you and ask, "Hey! Who scored that hoop?"
"You know. What's his face. That short and stocky white guy. There! Wearing that Pink Panther T-shirt and those flamer MC Hammer pants."
You begin to realize that just last week you knew this player by name, by the team that he played for, by his talents and by the organizational sport that he represented. Today you are overloaded with assumptions of this player's physical appearance, race, TV/Music preferences and quite possibly his sexual orientation.
We might as well toss the Basketball out the window for the focus is no longer on the game.
For parents who argue against Public School uniforms due to the lack of creative expression and individuality, I have some questions. Do you really want the stereotyping of your child by school officials to continue? For teacher's to assume that just because your child is of a certain race that he/she must have a discipline problem?
Should your son's intelligence and study habits constantly be in question by his obvious love of video games judging by the T-shirts he loves to wear?
How does it feel to be judged as an inattentive parent by the way your daughter chooses to dress?
These sort of stereotypical assumptions should be removed from a classroom learning environment. Our children should be recognized by their name, talents, abilities and their needs. Public School uniforms do serve to get the most out of our public educational systems by returning the focus onto our children. Serving to identify them as individual students who are in the classroom to learn. |
Stumble It!
.......posted by Margaret @ 9:19 AM   |
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| 7 Comments: |
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Hey Margie,
Normally I would agree with you, especially since I was a screwed up scholarship kid at a prep school. :) We wore uniforms, of course, that I could barely afford.
However, in a world which has already headed down the slippery slope of dictatorship, anything which gives a bastion of authority a big ol' bull blanket to induce more conformity, not less, is asking for trouble.
Even if they're right, as in the case going on down here in red land where hospitals are allowed by *law* to pull the plugs on their gorkiest patients, no matter what the wishes of the family. Even though I rarely agree with the Schiavo families of this planet, if today the state decides they will pull the plug on you because you are a non-resuscitatable gork, tomorrow they will do it because you have no more insurance.
Give the state an inch, and they will take everything Google Maps can recon.
love f
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I am not against school uniforms in public schools. We had that in Arkansas. My only complaint was the COST. I spent over $300 on five shirts, five pairs of pants, and three pairs of shorts. YIKES.
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School uniforms wouldn't help with the problem you describe.Teachers would still know who the rich and the important parents are if that's the game they want to play.
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Uniforms are mandatory here in Australia. I never enjoyed wearing the actual uniform at school, which wasn't really true - I was just too poor to afford them, but I wore the schools colours always.
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I’m with ya. The “Creative Expression Through Clothes” concept is laughable. Kids have plenty of ways to express themselves other than by wearing overpriced, overrated pieces of freakin’ cotton. Personally, I’d rather my kids learn creative thought and opinion; not creative dressing and accessorizing! And unless kids like dressing in thrift store attire, uniforms are usually cheaper than the fad stuff most like to wear these days.
Cheers. Good, though-evoking post :-)
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This year it is voluntary, but it is mandatory next year. They where plain polos, khakis or unembellished jeans, or blue pants, skits, skorts, and jumpers.
The kids will find ways to stick it in others faces no matter what, though. Oh well.
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that doesnt make much sense....sports is an entirely different subject..this is school and school is not a sport. kids should learn to not judge people. school uniforms is just avoiding the matter and subject of kids learning to not be judgemental.
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Hey Margie,
Normally I would agree with you, especially since I was a screwed up scholarship kid at a prep school. :) We wore uniforms, of course, that I could barely afford.
However, in a world which has already headed down the slippery slope of dictatorship, anything which gives a bastion of authority a big ol' bull blanket to induce more conformity, not less, is asking for trouble.
Even if they're right, as in the case going on down here in red land where hospitals are allowed by *law* to pull the plugs on their gorkiest patients, no matter what the wishes of the family. Even though I rarely agree with the Schiavo families of this planet, if today the state decides they will pull the plug on you because you are a non-resuscitatable gork, tomorrow they will do it because you have no more insurance.
Give the state an inch, and they will take everything Google Maps can recon.
love f