Students Dislike Uniforms, Respond By Burning Them

[Sithdarth]

In the end, the reason so many schools have uniforms is that there's no real, actual, practical inconvenience to them.

Except that one glaringly huge inconvenience that you and basically everyone else in this thread have blithely ignored. A statistically large portion of the schools in America are financially crippled and serve students in similar situations. I know this is specifically true in New York State where the k-12 school I went to actually had to cut out its music program and half of its sports and arts due to lack of money. Now how exactly are schools that can't even pay for educational programs going to provide uniforms for their students?

Its not much better on the students side in most of these schools. They're either members of the rural poor or the urban poor. It doesn't really make a difference cause most of them can barely afford food let alone a school uniform on top of the bare minimum of clothes their kids get. Clothes which are either hand-me-downs, bought second hand, or simply received through charity. So it seems to me uniforms could be a very large inconvenience to a great many smaller schools and provide no real benefits.

[Art of Hilt]

I acknowledge that it could be a financial inconvenience for those schools to have a uniform, but usually they don't have uniforms in the first place. Rather, I was talking about uniforms in older schools which have always had uniforms and most probably always will. There's no inconvenience for those schools, which have always had uniforms, to suddenly stop having uniforms. That's what I meant, in all honesty. To those schools, the uniform never worked against them, since most students usually just deal with it instead of... you know... burning them.

[Ugainius]

Yeah to be honest the introduction of uniforms into America is kind of pointless, however I am merely confused by the staunch resistance to them.

Also after a bit of research Blazers suck, Jumpers FTW!

[Xaeta]

feh....a uniform is a uniform and (in Japan) it's designed to teach you how to be a member of society and a member of a team so that you will progress as a team. Rather than reflecting individuality (which comes in the form or hairstyles) the uniforms are there to improve the team effort.

......which doesn't help when the GIRLS in the team have skirts about 2 cm lower than their panties and they become WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION.

[pictish]

I just wanna pitch in that uniforms aren't 100% in the norm here in the UK. Here in Scotland, Edinburgh even so not some small place outta the way, I had no uniform enforcement throughout most of school. There was just the option to wear things with the school logo/name on it if you so wished.

Then, about mid way through secondary school they started to try and bring in a uniform. First they asked the students if we wanted a uniform or dress code. The majority response was a resounding "no", so naturally they whipped up a dress code as fast as possible. As DFM said, people didn't like having their freedom taken away that they had. The main question asked was "Why do we need a uniform?"

The answers given again and again were:
"Stop bullying based on clothing brand"
"Sense of school unity"
"Create discipline by means of ????"
"Because we said so, so shut up"

This became a massive fight between the school administration and the students, and consumed the entirety of every school council meeting until they decided they didn't want us talking about that any more, which threw up even more trouble.

Never once was a good reason given. Bullying happened regardless of clothes and for reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with clothes, no one wanted to feel school unity due to an enforced policy or didn't want to feel like part of the school because they just plain didn't feel proud of the school, and by creating this rule they just created a bunch of otherwise hard working students who were now rule breakers who had to leave classes every day to march through the nonsense system of having to see the school headmaster, letter home to parents and whatnot. Most parents were against it too by the way, since this was a school that had a lot of poor folks including myself, who didn't much wanna go buying another full set of clothes for the sake of school if it could so be avoided. What we got was wasted time, on the part of the administration and students. Every day 'til the end, I and many others simply refused to wear it.

In the end, the dress code/uniform was largely a joke and everyone who had been in the school before the dresscode was thrust upon us refused it, and it sorta caught on with the new students outta not knowing different. I personally can't see why the effort of fighting the students over it is worth it over this, such an entirely arbitrary rule which creates no benefit that I saw. The last thing my school in particular needed was another rule to try and enforce. What a huge waste of my time trying to learn that was. I support those Welsh kids, who're not just sitting back and letting some rule set be arbitrarily forced upon them. I'd go as far as to say the only reason uniforms 'stick' in schools that already have 'em is because the students can't collectively see what an arbitrary and pointless rule it is to have pressed on them at all.

[russianreversal]

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

Uniforms serve a very important purpose: It helps remove individual identity when you are attempting to brainwash people. That's why they use uniforms in all military everywhere, and why cults all dress the same.

Ah, the brainwashing. Well, if I ever join the military, I hope they find the angriest, most ridiculously rageaholic guy they can to train me at boot camp, because I'm immune to pain, public humiliation AND shouting. Ha!

By the way, what did the uniforms look like? This is key because the article didn't have a picture. I've worn both school and martial arts uniforms (known as a gi in the latter) and they weren't too bad. But they looked just fine. If these are like; maroon, lavender and goldenrod, then we have a problem. :gonk:

[Buddha Fett]

I actually don't have a problem with uniforms; I wore them in grade school, and now I've got to wear them at work. If anything, having uniforms at school got me into the practice of looking good at all times, and helped me get my current (albeit shitty) job. Also, money didn't become too much of an issue for me; I just went to Goodwill and got a year's supply for about 25 bucks, after my first paycheck.

I understand where people are coming from on both sides of the argument, but I personally say, 'hey, who cares? Really? I mean, come on, it's just clothes! I wear what I want after school/work.'

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

I don't know, the fact that it's minor and pointless seems more like an argument for why they shouldn't wear uniforms. At least, unless it's just fantastic for people to be forced into doing stupid, pointless things for no reason.

I mean, sure, you could argue that it prepares you for life. You know, a life of being forced to do stupid, pointless things, which I suppose it makes employers happy, since they're all about forcing people to do stupid, pointless things (well, like, half of 'em are). But then, you know, if people went out and refused to work for employers who did that the world would be a better place or something. So can we really have these... these hoodlums running around refusing to conform to the most inane and pointless mandates of others?

But seriously though, for my money, "I don't wanna'," is a better argument than the school's, "do this because we say so."

Or, we could go about pulling out the evidence that uniforms are harmful, but considering the conflicting evidence both ways, it seems most likely that uniforms don't have any consistent, definable effect on anything, and it's all just pointless.

So, come on, it's just clothes, why have rules about it?

[Lord of Joshelplex]

Originally Posted by The Kneumatic Pnight

So, come on, it's just clothes, why have rules about it?

Because individuality is a danger to the society. Always remember, the society before the individual.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by Lord of Joshelplex

Because individuality is a danger to the society. Always remember, the society before the individual.

I'm tempted to make an Officially Sanctioned Nuklear Power Forum Avatar that everyone must display.