Antitonic said:
Yeah, I know. It was meant to lighten the mood in here a little.
*juggles kittens*
Awww, no epic reply to my epic post? I mean, the kitten juggling was cool and all, but still.
Yeah, a part of me knew that you were joking with that, but my annoying politically and socially minded part kind of covered that. That happens sometimes. Like riiiigggghhhhttt.... NOW!
Bruin said:
It doesn't destroy individuality.
What destroys individuality is making kids think being different even matters when they're only reduced to a test score and a name on a college application. And you can still be an individual. That's where your personality comes in. You don't have to look cool, edgy and unique to actually be all of those things.
Tell it to the self-conscious, Gossip-girl, Gleek-freak wannabe who wants to fit into those size 0's, starves herself and pukes into the toilet after meals, that her clothes don't matter.
You don't want to be sexist? Then consider these things. Things like bulimia are growing more prevalent in teenage boys. The need and urge to fit in is just as intense as with females. Men care about their appearance just as much as women do.
Also, looks are a big part of first impressions. If one kid is a genuinely good goat and has shitty clothes, nobody is going to bat an eyelash at him in the hallway. Because he doesn't look like a genuinely good goat, he looks like a genuinely, utterly poor goat. Give him a uniform, which all the other kids are wearing, and you've only got your personality to speak for you. The good goat now looks like an average goat but his personality sets him apart from the other mutzes in the flock. Is this not your precious individuality?
True, school uniforms won't destroy individuality, but they do remove one of the ways people like to express themselves. People like to express themselves by putting things on their bodies, just as they like to do with verbal speech, with music, with body language, with writing, ect. What I'll never understand is this attitude that those other forms of self-expression are somehow more important or legitimate then using your clothing and body to express yourself.
And yes, people feel the pressure to fit in, and in many cases, will do something contrary to themselves that is unhealthy or harmful to fit in. But school uniforms won't remove the social pressure to conform. It will only remove one of the ways that pressure manifests itself as. The problem will still be there, but will just come up in another form. If we really want to get rid of these types of problems, we want to create an atmosphere that accepts and embraces people's differences, not one that looks at them as potentially dangerous.
I understand that you want to remove the pressure for kids to conform to certain groups and cliches, I want the same thing. But you're using conformity to fight conformity. That's hypocritical and sends a pretty mixed message, don't you think? In fact, school uniforms might even perpetuate the problem, but in a different way. Instead of the pressure to conform to your peers, there will be the pressure to conform to the school's and authority's demands. Is that really any better?
And once again, forcing everybody to wear the same thing is not going to get rid of unfair first impressions, because the unfair assumptions and biases will still be there. People will still be judged unfairly based on their hair, skin and eye color, weight, height, accent, mannerisms, beliefs, family background, and many other irrelevant factors. School uniforms, teaching people to wear "appropriate clothes," ect. will only mask the problem, not solve it. Individuality isn't the problem it's people's bigotry and bias toward harmless types of it that is, and raising a generation of kids that grew up having to wear the same clothes isn't going to help this problem.
I do highly agree with you though, that reducing students to test scores and other numbers is a much bigger issue, and I wish more people would recognize how harmful this increasing focus on testing is.
You have my condolences.
