Poll: Your opinion on School Uniforms.

[SonOfVoorhees]

Uniforms are meant to promote unity as all look the same. Also to beat bullying because you are poorer and thus your clothes you wear make you susceptible to bullying. School is to learn, not a fashion show. When i was a kid, you would get bullied or looked down on if you didnt wear brand name trainers. Its pathetic. Although now with iphones/ipads etc i guess i guess clothing doesnt matter any more when you have last years phone. Its still pathetic though.

 

[Thyunda]

Uniforms are meant to promote unity as all look the same. Also to beat bullying because you are poorer and thus your clothes you wear make you susceptible to bullying. School is to learn, not a fashion show. When i was a kid, you would get bullied or looked down on if you didnt wear brand name trainers. Its pathetic. Although now with iphones/ipads etc i guess i guess clothing doesnt matter any more when you have last years phone. Its still pathetic though.

I'm twenty years old. I left school four years ago. I STILL get made fun of if my friends have better phones. That shit never changes.

 

[SadisticFire]

I have not been to any school with uniforms, but I would personally believe I wouldn't find a taste for them. I don't feel like myself if I'm not wearing my Aperture science hoodie, and fedora. Kinda got used to wearing those, and now it kinda feels like I should. Suppose I'm weird like that. I can see that it's supposed to be unity and anti bulley, but it never seems to be exactly clothe outfit. Though the schools I went to the issues weren't the student, it was the staff..

 

[Kaltazraza]

I don't think any danish public schools and such requires uniform, if they did I wouldn't like it, unless it would be T-shirts and shorts all year round.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I hate the very idea of school uniforms. It represents anti-individualism and strict adherence to authority.
Just let the kids express themselves. Every form of limitation you throw at kids is actively killing their creativity and enthusiasm for exploration. Even though I don't care about fashion I can't deny that a sense of personal style and the expression of it is important for kids and their development. School uniforms is shaping their minds to be more obedient. Is that what society needs? Obedient drones? People who look the same, talk the same and like the same things? The most beloved people in our history were innovators and freethinkers. Individuals who didn't allow the society to tie them down and tell them what to do and how to do it. Those are the values that we should teach our kids to aspire to. And wearing school uniforms just sends the wrong message. It's the first step in the wrong direction.

I'm not saying that school uniforms are the main problem. No. They are merely one of the symptoms.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I went to two schools that required uniform and then a sixth form that required suits.

Requiring suits/smart clothing I think is completely appropriate, but having a specific school uniform puts you at the mercy of the uniform supplier. My school blazer was hideously expensive.

Specifically requiring girls wear skirts also creates problems for people who need to cover up. The few Muslim girls at my secondary school did the sensible thing and simply wore trousers instead (ignoring the uniform rules). I always felt a bit jealous because I hated wearing skirts (especially in winter) but couldn't get away with wearing trousers.

A girl at my primary school (unfortunately, after I'd already left) actually managed to get the girls-must-wear-skirts rule changed by just turning up in smart trousers every day. The teachers tried sending her home to change for the first few days, then gave up.

I think schools should just specify shirt/blouse, black/grey skirt/trousers and smart shoes.

 

[MetalMagpie]

No, because I'm lazy. Schools that require uniforms only give you one, don't they? So, doesn't that mean having to do laundry every day? Sounds like a waste.

In the UK, you don't generally get given the uniform by your school. You have to buy it. So you can buy as many as you like, but it can get quite expensive if your school requires you to use a particular uniform supplier.

 

[Simonism451]

1.I didn't choose which school to go to, my parents did it with only very little input from my side ("Would you like to learn french?" "I guess"). Which school I'm going to says very little about me as a person and more about me as someone who lives in its relative vicinity. Also that my grades in elementary school weren't bad enough to get sent to a lower school. Why should I want to identify myself with it? Also, while I get along well with pretty much all of my schoolmates and am friends with some of them, I don't see why I should feel a sense of a special connection with them just because we have the same teachers. After all, the problems I face are very universal for kids and teenagers everywhere. It's not like they were my old unit back in 'Nam or anything.
2. If someone is seriously bullied (not a few instances of trashtalking, some guy being an occasional dick) the problem won't be solved by changing clothes.
3. Why should a school require you to dress "smart"? You aren't trying to sell anybody anything there, you are there to get knowledge beaten into your stupid little heads. If people not being dressed in a "smart" way around you is an obstacle in this, the problem probably doesn't stem from them. Also, how would you people ever survive university?

 

[BoredAussieGamer]

Yes, with a qualification:

The uniforms have to be comfortable, and to reasonable degrees of strictness. Here's what I mean:
I went to two schools for secondary, both of which shall remain unnamed.

The first one (I was only there for a year) had strict guidelines requiring suits, ties, regardless of what time of year. We had to wear their socks (I wish I was fucking kidding) and wear their bags, neither of which were particularly good. They also had strict guidelines about facial hair (Specifically you cannot have any ************) and hair. We also had to change into an entirely different PE outfit that wasn't assisting in the matter of how much crap we have to carry around, and because of that we had to spend the entirety of our recess and lunch breaks changing. We couldn't even change out on our way home, and sometimes the principal would wait at the train station to make sure we adhered to those petty rules. And to top it off, the uniforms were fucking expensive.

The second one was by comparison far more laid back. They didn't care about what bags, socks, or shoes we wore. They didn't care how we did our hair, be it facial or on your cranium. We had two choices of everyday uniform: Cargo Pants/shorts/skirt (they were fine with men wearing them I should point out) and a light polo shirt, or a suit which only a few mad bastards would pick. For winter we could wear coats, hoodies, parachute jackets, jumpers, or just go without if you're part Nord. For PE, all we really had to change was our shirt, and it was all pretty inexpensive.

The latter was a good example of uniform done correctly. It made it clear who we were on campus, but it didn't dig too deep into our parents pockets, it was practical, reasonable about it's guidelines, and comfortable.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I went to a Catholic School for most of my elementary and some of Jr. high years and was required to wear a uniform through all of it.

While you still can't get me into a powder blue button up shirt and black slacks these days due in no small part to the fact that I think it makes me "look like I'm playing school boy." I didn't really have a problem with the uniform at the time and don't have issues with it now.

What I do end up having problems with are schools without uniforms that still enforce ridiculous dress codes that involve things like. "No black clothing."

The logic as I understand it is black clothing = goth kids and goth kids = school shootings.
Therefore no black clothing = no goth kids = problem solved.

It's completely insane.

 

[J Tyran]

They are a good idea, when I was in senior school in the 90s (high school) people used to pick on the ones from poorer families or families unwilling to sell their souls to catalogues. Having cheap trainers instead of £100 Nike Air Max or a cheap bag instead of a branded sports bag caused enough bullying, it would have been even worse for the kids not wearing Nike popper trackie bottoms and Lacoste T-shirts.

 

[The_Echo]

No, because I'm lazy. Schools that require uniforms only give you one, don't they? So, doesn't that mean having to do laundry every day? Sounds like a waste.

In the UK, you don't generally get given the uniform by your school. You have to buy it. So you can buy as many as you like, but it can get quite expensive if your school requires you to use a particular uniform supplier.

Well, that just seems even worse! I feel like if the school is requiring it, they should supply it.

 

[MetalMagpie]

No, because I'm lazy. Schools that require uniforms only give you one, don't they? So, doesn't that mean having to do laundry every day? Sounds like a waste.

In the UK, you don't generally get given the uniform by your school. You have to buy it. So you can buy as many as you like, but it can get quite expensive if your school requires you to use a particular uniform supplier.

Well, that just seems even worse! I feel like if the school is requiring it, they should supply it.

In the UK almost all schools require students to wear a uniform, so it's an accepted expense that parents know they'll have to account for. I imagine most schools in the USA require students to wear some sort of footwear to school, but the school doesn't supply it.

It's not too bad, providing you pick your school carefully if you have tight finances. Big supermarkets sell generic school uniform in a variety of colours, which works as long as the school doesn't have expensive crested blazers or demand that you buy the whole lot from them (often hugely marked up so the school can make a profit on them).

I went to a private school, so had to wear a massively over-priced uniform from the school's chosen supplier. Although there were second-hand uniform sales to help students from less well-off families afford it, you could always spot the students wearing outdated, faded blazers. They were generally the kids who had got in on scholarship, so their parents didn't have to pay the fees.

My sister went to a state school (where they don't assume your parents are rich) so she only had to buy a jumper with the school's crest on from the school itself. The rest of the uniform could be bought from a supermarket.

 

[Rossco64]

According to the law (Scot's Law at least) any State (public) School's uniform must be affordable. As mentioned most supermarkets provide fairly cheap uniform in bulk. The most expensive it got foe me was my blazer which was around £70. However those things were built to last and you could even sell them back to get some of the next one, and even then I only went through two.

On a side note: Anyone else remember getting school uniform two sizes too big so it would last longer during those growth spurt stages?

Also all these posts regarding individuality being crushed are just not true, and if anything are rather silly.

 

[Panorama]

i had no problem in school uniforms, i went to two schools which both made me wear a uniform so 13 years or so in uniform. I didn't mind and still don't.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Two things:
One - This little gem. In school, you're just another product in the production line. You're not special. You all get the same education and then fuck off to the big bad world.

Two - I went to a school with a uniform since I was in first grade. I support the practice.