Nordik wrote:I am staunchly pro school uniforms for several reasons:
1. a) It prevents poor kids getting as much flak from richer kids due to what they are wearing - although having worn school uniforms most of the time myself, I know that this just leads to kids giving you crap for wearing the wrong brand of shoes, but it is still less.
1. b) Hence it makes it much easier and cheaper for parents to dress their kids for school.
2. It prepares them for later life. I do not know many workplaces where you do not have some form of uniform, be it a dark suit if you're a banker, a tool belt if you're a carpenter, a boiler suit if you're an engineer (or suit if you work in the office), etc, etc. I do not see why school should be any different. If kids want to be individual, that is all well and good. Let them be so after "work" like the rest of us.
3. It helps prevent minor crimes (bear with me on this one). When I went to secondary school, we used to drink in this pub when we were under aged. The owners wouldn't really care about ID's if we'd flashed one at him (he never checked your age), but if you came into the bar in a school uniform you'd get refused alcohol. Actually the first time I did so was on my 18th birthday and I hadn't brought with me any ID ironically.I also found that it was much harder to buy drugs in uniform since at least some dealers actually have some modicum of morals.
4. It helps promote pride in your school. As much as I hated the uniform and tried to rebel by not tucking in my shirt, buying trousers which were still grey, but not regulation and wearing them, wearing socks which weren't either navy or black, wearing Doc Martens (which were not allowed due to the yellow thread) and so on and so forth, you did get a sense of who you were and what you stood for from the uniform. Whether or not a us vs them spirit is a good idea (there were plenty of fights between rival schools) is kind of beside the point. I don't see it as any different from having uniforms on the football team really.
My 6 pennies.
- E
well, for your third point, you're admitting that being part of a school with uniform didn't prevent you from wanting to drink under age and to do drugs.
i also kind of remember that when i was a kid the most important apparel where your sneakers. It was also the most expensive thing you'd have on you and they kind of had to last the whole year, and you might only have 2 pairs (we use to grow 1 shoe size each year). I remember that each time a friend/classmate had a new pair it was a big deal. I don't remember anyone making fun of other for having crappy sneakers... but more a "wow" effect when someone had a new cool pair of reebok pump, nike air jordan/air max, puma disk ect ect... Anyway, I kind of remember that the bullying was always about someone's name, someone's face features, someone's hygiene, someone's personality, someone's poor sports skills, someone's slut mother... Those were enough stuff to mock others or to be mocked at. But I don't remember people making fun of other kids during school recess because they looked poor by the way they were dressed, even if it was the case.
I never really had any sort of dress code in my industry (advertising), unless I had to meet more senior clients. I pretty much got to dress the way I wanted all my life, even if you know that some stuff are a bit too much for a work environment.. but same goes for school. And who cares about the pride of your middle school/high school... You only get to care when it comes to college/university in my opinion.
Anyway, as I already said I'm not for or against uniforms, it's more a question of personal choice. I just think that as long as parents/kids get to chose between one or the other it's cool. I don't believe it's going to change anything in a kid's personality though.
