Re: Is this OT?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 10:35 -0500 9/5/02, Rick Tarara wrote:
> If we want to know why the public schools can't make any headway on the
> problems they face, we need only look to the above comment.  When something
> is proposed that would have a measurable effect on improving the school
> LEARNING climate, it is immediately opposed by some misguided 'civil
> liberties' concern.  If the proposal gets a little father--then the lawyers
> will jump in.  We should always keep in mind why the tax payers are footing
> the bill for public education--I think it is to produce citizens with the
> skills and knowledge to be contributors to the society.  As much as
> possible, those factors that significantly detract from that goal should be
> eliminated.
It is not a given that uniforms promote better academics.

I have been on both ends of this "debate." The high school I attended
had a "uniform" of sorts--for girls. This was in the 50s. The rule
was that girls had to wear white blouses and blue skirts (school
colors), Monday through Thursday. They could wear whatever they
wanted on Friday. The reason for the rule was economic. Our district
had a wide range of parental incomes, from very wealthy to on
welfare, and the uniforms tended to suppress the ostentatious display
of that wealth. It wasn't considered necessary to put uniforms on the
boys since we all wore blue jeans and t-shirts all the time,
regardless of how wealthy our families were, so it was a de facto
uniform. I didn't see any noticeable effect on academic performance.
The good kids did well; the screw-ups didn't, regardless of what they
could or couldn't wear.

Where I am now, there is no dress code whatever (although there is
some rumblings of doing something along those lines, but it hasn't
progressed very far). So we see students in all sorts of states of
dress, from the bizarre and shock inducing to the squarest of the
square. Some of the more bizarre dressers are among our best
students. Some of the worst grade-grubbers are the square dressers.

Aside from the possible irrelevance of uniforms for academic
performance, the idea also runs roughshod over the dress standards of
any number of religious groups. When one combines the idea of a
uniform with the "zero tolerance" wave of stupidity overwhelming our
schools these days, we get such nonsense as an orthodox Jew being
expelled for wearing a Yarmulka, or a Sikh for wearing a turban, in
violation of the "no hats" rule, or a Mennonite girl being expelled
for wearing a full length skirt when the uniform code specifies a
skirt "just below the knee." When one starts allowing exceptions,
however, we find that the ones who get the exceptions are "marked,"
and subject to ridicule or worse by their fellow students. How does
this contribute to an improved academic climate? And how is a "civil
liberties" concern over such issues "misguided"?

Private schools are free to do what they want in this matter. Those
who don't want to conform tot he code don't have to go there. Public
schools are different. My impression of students who dress in bizarre
or overly suggestive ways, is that they are seeking attention,
especially attention from the adults, and the best way to deal with
them is to pay no attention to their attention-getting antics, or, if
they have become disruptive, deal with the issue in private. Often,
the student's peers will make it clear to the offender that they
don't approve of what they are doing, and that usually will stop it.

One day I had a pretty good student show up with green, spiked hair.
All I did was casually remark that his lawn service was doing pretty
well on the fertilizer but their mower was clearly badly in need of
repair. The next day his hair was back to normal (except that it took
some time for the green to wash out).

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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