School Uniform - a Good Thing, or Not?

[Hammerstein]

Employment is governed by different statute from schools in the UK. It is not the same situation. Pupils are not employed, but legally obliged to be at school.

 

Nailed it.

 

Edit: Although to answer WeX myself, there are many shops where a uniform isn't required. Many clothes shops for example have people wearing casual clothes (although many may require the people to wear clothes bought from the shop). Full uniforms aren't vital on any practical level, they're just a custom. So long as customers can recognise staff in some way - whether by a hat or a badge or something - it doesn't matter at all.

 

In schools it is different entirely though. There isn't really a need to distinguish between pupils and non-pupils.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Hammerstein

[salsafan]

A fireman's job is a matter of life and death. There are circumstances where it is absolutely vital to be able to recognise a fireman very quickly in order to save lives. It isn't really the same in schools.

Why not ? It is the same. The fireman is serious about his job. About saving lives. Shouldn't a child be serious about their future too, and also serious about what they are learning ? The motivation has to be shown, as children do not know any better. It has to be taught and shown how. If children cannot or is not parented to see their own weaknesses and strengths, then what makes you think that they will excel all on their own ?

 

This is a ridiculous argument. I really don't see a link between what the child is wearing and their well-being and the quality of their education.

It is about whether you are serious about your own life or not. If you take it seriously or not. If you do not care about such small things, what makes you think that you will care about the bigger things in life ?

 

A school uniform is not just about clothing, but it is about personal responsibilities. Can a child dress themselves, and take care of themselves and so forth. You may be surprised that many children when shown how can look after themselves when young. You need to praise that the child is doing well and he will feel good in his own achievements. Dressing well is also the same too. If parents do not care and do not teach them these basics to appreciate and achieve against, what makes a person know and think that they can handle larger things in life, if the simplest of things like dressing well and walking out the door is looked after? It is a personal hygiene responsibility.

 

Many parents can't afford a tutor.

My mother cannot afford a tutor either and we were living in council housing too. It was my own brother who tutored me and he was at least 12 years older than I was. There you go.

 

I in turn tutored my cousins when I was older, and once I understood a subject inside and out.

 

This is of course assuming that it is the child with the problem. Often little focus is ever given to whether schools, where the children are essentially prisoners, are healthy for the child. Obviously most children have never experienced anything else so don't know how else they might be run, but the point remains.

 

It's funny, my nephew who is 2 years old goes to nursery in London, and already he has been told off for behavourial problems at school. It means he is not ready to socialise yet. So my sister now make him go to nursery less, and then spend more time to play with him in order to learn the social skills that he needs at nursery. As he is more clingy and is not willing to share. He does not know what to say or to do to want to play with the other kids. In a few months, he is now ready. He even knows how to ask to play with another kid. This kind of empathy skill needs to be taught. It was so horrible to push him to go originally when he was not ready, but now he gets private time with his parents to make him feel more secure, as well as ways to communicate with others kids so that he can express himself clearly. Now he is so happy.

 

---------- Post added 30-01-2014 at 11:58 ----------

 

salsafan, you are preaching to the converted, but the parallels you draw with independents schools aren't really applicable here, since they are beyond education authority control and can kick out anyone who proves troublesome for whatever reason, if they choose to. State schools do not have that luxury.

 

I do not wish to exaggerate the problem - I'm sure there are schools where the kids w generally wear it properly if not cheerfully and it doesn't cause headaches for the teachers who are required by the Head to enforce it when what they really want to do is teach. But all it takes is a significant stroppy/disaffected minority of kids and/or parents, and it is virtually impossible to police it. Yes, of course it is the parents' responsibility, but if they do not take that seriously, the uniform policy will never be implemented 100%, or at least not without unjustifable cost to the school in terms of staff time and energy.

I used to be so childish and not side with my mother on issues and topics like this. Having worked in the professional environment, and also been to different schools when young one with a uniform and another without, the difference in teaching and the standards were so different. I can genuinely appreciate this kind of slow transition from school to working environment and what one learns as they grow. My mother was right to say that "one day you will thank me for making you do this". This is true.

 

I used to think and actually challenge whether it is right and just to bully the parents whose children are unruly, but then when I realised that importance of your child surviving in the real world and making sure that they learn slowly but surely. They have all the time in the world to learn and make small mistakes when young, that by the time that they are older, they shouldn't make that much mistakes on basic things like that.

 

It really is one of those survival skill which a parent teaches slowly but surely over time and adapt the method which works best for their own child. So yes, clothing is important in the sense of dressing well, and taking care of one's personal hygiene and well being.

 

---------- Post added 30-01-2014 at 12:00 ----------

 

Employment is governed by different statute from schools in the UK. It is not the same situation. Pupils are not employed, but legally obliged to be at school.

 

Good for them! I'm glad to hear it. My point was that if a strict uniform policy works, it is only with the co-operation of the parents and pupils themselves ; it's virtually impossible to impose it (legally) against their will.

Basically again, this is one of these education politics issue isn't it ? In my mind, this should not even BE an issue. Either parents are serious about their kid or that they are not. Uniform or no uniform. Do most parents know how to bring the best out of their own child as well, rather than to think that they will remain happy but without understanding of what works and what doesn't work with their own child.

Edited January 30, 2014 by salsafan

[Hammerstein]

Why not ? It is the same. The fireman is serious about his job. About saving lives. Shouldn't a child be serious about their future too, and also serious about what they are learning ? The motivation has to be shown, as children do not know any better. It has to be taught and shown how. If children cannot or is not parented to see their own weaknesses and strengths, then what makes you think that they will excel all on their own ?

 

Please explain to me how what you wear has an impact on how well you learn.

 

It is about whether you are serious about your own life or not. If you take it seriously or not. If you do not care about such small things, what makes you think that you will care about the bigger things in life ?

 

You're forgetting that people tend to disregard the small, trivial things because they care about the bigger things.

 

A school uniform is not just about clothing, but it is about personal responsibilities. Can a child dress themselves, and take care of themselves and so forth. You may be surprised that many children when shown how can look after themselves when young. You need to praise that the child is doing well and he will feel good in his own achievements. Dressing well is also the same too. If parents do not care and do not teach them these basics to appreciate and achieve against, what makes a person know and think that they can handle larger things in life, if the simplest of things like dressing well and walking out the door is looked after? It is a personal hygiene responsibility.

 

Whether or not you are wearing a school uniform is absolutely nothing to do with personal hygiene. I agree that being able to dress yourself is important but whether or not children should have to wear a uniform is different from them simply being able to dress themselves.

 

It's a strange kind of hypocrisy that schools tell children not to judge people on what they look like but who they are, and yet they judge the children themselves on what they look like.

 

Furthermore, children are not told to look after themselves in school anyway. They are given no opportunity to make any independent decisions which have any meaningful impact on their life. You can't develop independence, self-reliance or even a sense of morality which isn't derived from obedience if you are never given the opportunity to express those skills.

 

My mother cannot afford a tutor either and we were living in council housing too. It was my own brother who tutored me and he was at least 12 years older than I was. There you go.

 

I in turn tutored my cousins when I was older, and once I understood a subject inside and out.

 

Congratulations. Not everyone has those opportunities though.

 

It's funny, my nephew who is 2 years old goes to nursery in London, and already he has been told off for behavourial problems at school. It means he is not ready to socialise yet. So my sister now make him go to nursery less, and then spend more time to play with him in order to learn the social skills that he needs at nursery. As he is more clingy and is not willing to share. He does not know what to say or to do to want to play with the other kids. In a few months, he is now ready. He even knows how to ask to play with another kid. This kind of empathy skill needs to be taught. It was so horrible to push him to go originally when he was not ready, but now he gets private time with his parents to make him feel more secure, as well as ways to communicate with others kids so that he can express himself clearly. Now he is so happy.

 

I'm not sure what your point is, but that is a nice story.

[salsafan]

Why not ? It is the same. The fireman is serious about his job. About saving lives. Shouldn't a child be serious about their future too, and also serious about what they are learning ? The motivation has to be shown, as children do not know any better. It has to be taught and shown how. If children cannot or is not parented to see their own weaknesses and strengths, then what makes you think that they will excel all on their own ? [/Quote]

 

Please explain to me how what you wear has an impact on how well you learn.

You are teaching the child life skills. How to take care of their own personal hygiene. This is life skill. Are you going to be forever there to mother them to brush their teeth or to get them to dress well and to brush their hair for them ? The answer is no, I assume. The uniform is just the same. School is also about learning other aspect of life skills on top of an actual academic education.

 

Maybe you do not see the parallel in that, but I see it as a simple extension of their own skills in life.

 

Whether or not you are wearing a school uniform is absolutely nothing to do with personal hygiene. I agree that being able to dress yourself is important but whether or not children should have to wear a uniform is different from them simply being able to dress themselves.

Teaching someone to wear a uniform in my mind is about trying to get the child to work with you and follow rules. Some are also about following instructions too. They are attending school. They are not attending someone's house to play. Dressing a child and making them learn about how to dress, and what to wear, and when and why is a life skill itself. It is about personal hygiene. How to wash their own clothes, when it is ready. When it is needed for school. All this is about a person's own responsibility.

 

People often say that men going to the army will drill a sense of character into them. The same can be said for children but wearing uniforms and going to school. It should drill a sense of character, and it should build their own sense of character too from a young age.

 

Sometimes when you let a child go wild with their own imagination and so forth and not make them wear the same thing can also defeat the objective of just wearing well. They can get too distracted on how to look good and not actually even learn what they are supposed to at school. Letting a child wear a uniform at least remove this kind of headache on "what do I need to wear in order to be accepted for my age". Do you not see so many kids even confused when they are outside of school and some dress very inappropiately and wrong for their own age ?

 

It's a strange kind of hypocrisy that schools tell children not to judge people on what they look like but who they are, and yet they judge the children themselves on what they look like.

What ? It is not a hypocrisy at all. Schools are not judging what a child is wearing but they are there to teach. If you see them as judging, then I would actually suggest you recheck your own understanding then. As it is obvious that you do not agree with discipline in education. Discipline as in soft discipline, with school rules set into place.

 

Furthermore, children are not told to look after themselves in school anyway. They are given no opportunity to make any independent decisions which have any meaningful impact on their life. You can't develop independence, self-reliance or even a sense of morality which isn't derived from obedience if you are never given the opportunity to express those skills.

Children are "guided". They do need to look after themselves and shown "how". This does not come out of nowhere, but if you show children and plant seeds, you will be surprised at how much their own personalities will come forward and then actually excel. Independence and self reliance are taught from basic things. You will also be surprised when children show their own morality and empathy. It actually exist. It does have to be acknowledged when shown. To be honest, you make it sound so black and white, but in reality, if a parent look at their own child's development and go along with each stage of the child's growth, then they would see it so clearly.

 

Congratulations. Not everyone has those opportunities though.

You make opportunities. Even I was asked by a school to tutor another child from an ethnic background, and I was not paid but we just went to a library and go through some subjects to make her understand and to learn.

 

If you have a neighbour who is an older kid and that your child is struggling, won't you ask for help ? Most moms are quite collaborative in this area. I do not see it as something that is very hard to ask for. See it as either babysitting money or swap skills and do their garden for them or other. Most people do still do this kind of thing, you know.

 

I'm not sure what your point is, but that is a nice story.

My point was, my 2 year old nephew can do this. I do believe that most children can also too. Even though I can see that it is hard, and that parents can feel the pressure. But it can indeed be done, and I am also shocked and surprised at how easy a child can indeed adapt when given love and attention when learning with a parent. A child has to have his hand held through each stage of his own learning in order to gain confidence.

[DeathAxe]

I think it is daft that by law, we are entitled to a free education. But yet to get that so called free education, you have to pay the school for uniforms.

 

And then kids get sent home with the "wrong shoes". While parents get fined for kids being late, or taking days off; the school isn't fined for sending kids home with shoes they don't like.

 

It is a complete farce.

[WeX]

I think it is daft that by law, we are entitled to a free education. But yet to get that so called free education, you have to pay the school for uniforms.

 

And then kids get sent home with the "wrong shoes". While parents get fined for kids being late, or taking days off; the school isn't fined for sending kids home with shoes they don't like.

 

It is a complete farce.

 

Its not a farce, kids turning up in the wrong uniform shows disrespect for the institution they are attending, birth both the child and the parents. When you have no respect for something you do not value it and so we have the situations we have today. Kids leaving schools with no hope of getting a job.

 

Its not a coincidence that the schools that appear to fail the most are schools where respect and abidance to the rules are few and far between.

 

I don't go to a posh school, I attended a comprehensive that had hard and fast rules you stuck too. Subsequently my school was one of the highest achieving schools in the area with pupils regularly heading off to Oxbridge universities. The kids who failed at their education where the same kids who railed against the rules. These people are shelf stacker's and box carriers now.

 

Being asked to wear a uniform is cheaper than wearing standard clothes and takes nothing away form the pupil.

Edited January 30, 2014 by WeX

[ivanava]

 

Please explain to me how what you wear has an impact on how well you learn.

 

 

 

Being comfortable in the clothes you're wearing is conducive to a good education, forcing children to wear something they don't want to wear isn't conducive to a good education.

[Hammerstein]

You are teaching the child life skills. How to take care of their own personal hygiene. This is life skill. Are you going to be forever there to mother them to brush their teeth or to get them to dress well and to brush their hair for them ? The answer is no, I assume. The uniform is just the same. School is also about learning other aspect of life skills on top of an actual academic education.

 

Maybe you do not see the parallel in that, but I see it as a simple extension of their own skills in life.

 

I understand that personal hygiene is a life skill. Staying clean, washing clothes etc. I don't understand in any way whatsoever that is associated with having to wear a school uniform.

 

Teaching someone to wear a uniform in my mind is about trying to get the child to work with you and follow rules. Some are also about following instructions too.

 

That's about right. The mainstream school system is dedicated to get the children to follow rules and instructions. They are never given the opportunity to question any of the assumptions ingrained in school, such as the uniform, because it would cause inconvenient questions which the school are unable to give an honourable answer to.

 

Fact is though, we live in a democracy. A healthy democracy relies precisely on people being in the habit of questioning things around them, and yet we discourage this kind of thinking in children by making them jump through all these pointless hoops.

 

If we make children put up with arbitrary rules and regulations without giving any justification for them and not letting the children question them, how can we expect them to grow up and take an active and critical part in a democratic society? How can the first of these things possibly lead to the other?

 

People often say that men going to the army will drill a sense of character into them. The same can be said for children but wearing uniforms and going to school. It should drill a sense of character, and it should build their own sense of character too from a young age.

 

I agree the army is a great analogy for what is happening in schools.

 

Sometimes when you let a child go wild with their own imagination and so forth and not make them wear the same thing can also defeat the objective of just wearing well. They can get too distracted on how to look good and not actually even learn what they are supposed to at school. Letting a child wear a uniform at least remove this kind of headache on "what do I need to wear in order to be accepted for my age". Do you not see so many kids even confused when they are outside of school and some dress very inappropiately and wrong for their own age?

 

Yeah that's a good point, it does take away the anxiety of what to wear to some extent.

 

What ? It is not a hypocrisy at all. Schools are not judging what a child is wearing but they are there to teach. If you see them as judging, then I would actually suggest you recheck your own understanding then. As it is obvious that you do not agree with discipline in education. Discipline as in soft discipline, with school rules set into place.

 

They are judging, often with a sense of moral indignation, children who do not wear particular clothes. How is that not judging them on their appearance?

 

Children are "guided". They do need to look after themselves and shown "how". This does not come out of nowhere, but if you show children and plant seeds, you will be surprised at how much their own personalities will come forward and then actually excel. Independence and self reliance are taught from basic things. You will also be surprised when children show their own morality and empathy. It actually exist. It does have to be acknowledged when shown.

 

They are not guided, which I suspect is why you put it in quotation marks. They are coerced.

 

Children can be trusted to make their own decisions and with freedom over what they learn. Schools already do this, for example:

 

http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/

http://www.sands-school.co.uk/

http://www.sudval.org/

 

There are dozens of other schools that work on the principles of (actual) democracy and freedom. A most interesting observation though is that many of these schools don't accept children over the age of 11 if they have spent all of their previous time in mainstream schools because these children, time and again, just cannot handle the level of freedom and responsibility they are given. Children who have never experienced mainstream schools in the first place get on fine, however, and are able to take responsibility for their decisions. The point is clear: it is the mainstream schools make the children dependent and unable to take responsibility for themselves, in the ways that I have set out already.

 

To be honest, you make it sound so black and white, but in reality, if a parent look at their own child's development and go along with each stage of the child's growth, then they would see it so clearly.

 

It is not as simple as that though. The way schools have turned out is not a natural, unconscious development - the way that schools are run was decided by people with particular interests and the schools today represent those interests. You're working on the assumption that schools are a politically neutral environment. They aren't. They are like they are for a reason, and many parents (and children, even if they can't express it) don't agree with it.

 

 

You make opportunities. Even I was asked by a school to tutor another child from an ethnic background, and I was not paid but we just went to a library and go through some subjects to make her understand and to learn.

 

To some extent you can make opportunities. Tell that to a child living on a dumpsite in the Philippines with no school that 'you make opportunities' though. The logic only follows so far.

 

My point was, my 2 year old nephew can do this. I do believe that most children can also too. Even though I can see that it is hard, and that parents can feel the pressure. But it can indeed be done, and I am also shocked and surprised at how easy a child can indeed adapt when given love and attention when learning with a parent. A child has to have his hand held through each stage of his own learning in order to gain confidence.

 

I still don't see what your point is. Your 2 year old nephew can do what? Go to nursery? Well done.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Hammerstein

[DeathAxe]

Its not a farce, kids turning up in the wrong uniform shows disrespect for the institution they are attending, birth both the child and the parents. When you have no respect for something you do not value it and so we have the situations we have today. Kids leaving schools with no hope of getting a job.

 

Its not a coincidence that the schools that appear to fail the most are schools where respect and abidance to the rules are few and far between.

 

I don't go to a posh school, I attended a comprehensive that had hard and fast rules you stuck too. Subsequently my school was one of the highest achieving schools in the area with pupils regularly heading off to Oxbridge universities. The kids who failed at their education where the same kids who railed against the rules. These people are shelf stacker's and box carriers now.

 

Being asked to wear a uniform is cheaper than wearing standard clothes and takes nothing away form the pupil.

 

Well aren't we all sir, monocle and top hat.

[ivanava]

Its not a farce, kids turning up in the wrong uniform shows disrespect for the institution they are attending, birth both the child and the parents. When you have no respect for something you do not value it and so we have the situations we have today. Kids leaving schools with no hope of getting a job.

 

Its not a coincidence that the schools that appear to fail the most are schools where respect and abidance to the rules are few and far between.

 

I don't go to a posh school, I attended a comprehensive that had hard and fast rules you stuck too. Subsequently my school was one of the highest achieving schools in the area with pupils regularly heading off to Oxbridge universities. The kids who failed at their education where the same kids who railed against the rules. These people are shelf stacker's and box carriers now.

 

Being asked to wear a uniform is cheaper than wearing standard clothes and takes nothing away form the pupil.

 

Respect works both ways, and respecting a child right to choose their own clothing would likely make them more respectful in return.