School Uniforms

"For eight hours of my day, five days a week, I live in a world where everyone looks just like me. I consider myself to be a creative individual, but if you were to see me among my friends at school, you wouldn't 'know me from Adam.' In the morning when I wake up I don the exact same colours and fabrics and patterns I wore the day before, and I feel as though every day is exactly the same. I find myself losing interest in academic and extracurricular activities. I feel stifled and squelched."--Unfortunately, this could be the response of any student forced to wear a uniform in his public school. Although the motives behind a move for a school uniform may be sincere and good, the fact is that a school wide uniform inhibits self-expression, it teaches students that conformity is the solution for conflict, and contrary to popular belief, it does not prevent violence or the formation of cliques and gangs within the school environment.'

When asked how they felt about school uniforms, according to online idebate.org, students from all walks of life protested that they threaten self expression. According to Riverdale High School sophomore Chelsea Liverpool, "students like to express [themselves] through clothes and don't want to be viewed the same as [their] classmates." Uniforms virtually suffocate individualism, whereas many modern-day teachers in America would like to say that they recognize each student for their individual talents and assets. This is not to say that the clothes a student wears advertise all of his or her talents and assets, but if a system removes the extremely personal quality of what a youth is allowed to wear on his back, it is a traumatizing unverbalized statement all on its own. According to Alastair Endersby of Bishops Wordsworth School in Salisbury, England, "Uniform was better suited to an age of rote learning and military-style discipline than to the more exploratory and creative values of modern education--values which are increasingly important to the wider economy." Some schools in Australia are even banning "noisy jewelry" as a part of their dress code. Each student is expected to be orderly to the point of conformity and focused to the mindset of machinery.

Aside from a being a threat to valuable self-expression, school uniforms also threaten a student's social skills. Many nay-sayers of uniforms point out that school uniforms teach students at a very malleable age that conformity is the solution for conflict. The idea behind the uniform is that if everyone looks the same no one will have a problem with anyone else. In the real world, this is a logical fallacy, and a very dangerous one at that. Uniforms may have been proven in some areas to decrease behavioral problems, given. However, as soon as these robots graduate high school and head out into the real world, they will discover that the dull and colourless world they have slept in for half a decade ended when the caps and gowns came off and that the modern, right-brained world that everyone else lives in does not play by uniform rules. Why should these intelligent youths be placed at such a disadvantage? Better to learn the art of interpersonal communication while they are young than discover they have been sheltered and deceived thier whole educational careers too late.

Unfortunately, supporters of school uniforms are still very securely convinced that uniforms are worth all of the misfortune that befalls their wearers just because of the magical way they mow down gangs, cliques, and all other hateful groups at the roots. However, as a soon-to-be high school graduate, I can personally say from experience that hateful children that desire to exclude and bully others will find a way to do so no matter what everyone is wearing. It is a foolish idea that says that one can take a group of students with behavioral issues, strap new clothes to their back and to everyone else's, and through this method eliminate gang activity. True, this may be an effective way to cut down mockery of clothing, but students who have the need to mock in order to feel good about themselves will not be stopped by this minor speed bump. The only thing that will change is that these students will find something new and possibly more deep to chew on and hurt others with. Gang members can still thrive with their connotative headbands taken away and their symbolic clothing discarded. In fact, after such a blow to their ego and a suffocation of their basic rights, they may even come back with rebellious vengeance.

Students from all over the country and even the world are railing against the unsightly blemish of school uniforms in their home towns. Uniforms squelch individuality, deceive students and deprive them of their social skills, and all the while try to claim that they are virtually eliminating the bad behavior of the student not by dealing with him personally, but by dealing with the clothes on his back. I am so fortunate to have lived in a world where I could choose how I wanted to present myself every morning that I woke up, and I would not deprive anyone of that right.