Submitted For Your Approval

[Chuck Jackson]

I sat through a 4 hour inservice today. As a little background, I am a High School Orchestra Director at an affluent school in Las Vegas. The speaker was one of those that basically said that if you did everything the way he did it, your school would be the Utopia his is. I submit that the definition of professional is anyone from out of town. I had a chance to talk to him afterwards and asked him this: As an English teacher who has just sung the praises of Emerson and Thoreau, lauds the freedoms that this country was built on, and cherishes the child's right to self express himself, do you find it mildly ironic that one of your big points for student achievement is a dress code?

I am one who feels that we choose our dress by our choice of employment. I was in the Army for 11 years and proudly wore the uniform. As a musician, I will wear whatever I am told when there is money involved, by choice. I stress the word "choice" because by denying a child a choice we take away one of the strongest learning tools in history. Many of us had a choice to choose to do something, consequences or not, when we were in our formative years that may have influenced who we became. By taking away the choice to express oneself by their dress when we are testing the world's boundaries, are we not stifling the creative urge and postponing the inevitable lock-step that is life? Choice makes one think, rigid enforcement breeds contempt.

I am cringing because a little later tonight there is a news show on that is going to tell America how schools are making your child stupid. Please watch this little propagandist essay with a grain of salt and talk to your childrens teachers. Chances are you will find dedicated professionals who actually like your kids, want to help them down life's road, have their best interests at heart, are compassionate people who, unfortunately, are getting dragged down by government requirements on every level. I talked to a History teacher today who I have taught with in two different schools. We came up with the conclusion that education is one of the only non-profit businesses that makes a point of reinventing the wheel every two years.

Engage your children in life, talk to them, laugh with them, argue with them, but talk to them however and whenever you can. Talk to your childrens teachers. Believe it or not, we are on your side. Have Peace.

Chuck

[windshieldbug]

"No Administration Left Befhind... "

[Tubaryan12]

I personally have no problem with a dress code for school for a couple of reasons. 1. As a parent, it makes shopping for school clothes a lot easier. 2. For the kid, It makes getting ready for school a lot easier (as a father of girls, I have heard too many times in the morning "I cant find anything to wear").

I won't even get into the "have you seen how these kids dress today" speech because my parents probably said the same thing about me. Kids have all weekend and every night from 4 until bedtime to wear whatever they want and they can pick and choose then.

Most of us have a dress code we must adhere to. It won't hurt them to start early. Maybe it will give some the incentive to work harder so that they can have a career where they can wear whatever they want for the rest of their lives.

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck, you mean you actually have students with more than one parent who's not in prison? And they give a darn about their kid's welfare? Next, you're probably going to tell me that they live in their own home.

What corner of Paradise do you work in?

[SplatterTone]

Ain't independence great!

Unfortunately, nobody ever explained to these guys that, one day, they are going to be old.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Unfortunately, nobody ever explain to these guys that, one day, they are going to be old.

What do you mean, "one day"? 'Tween all the shrapnel and the massive "dyscolorations" ...

[Carroll]

Wow, that's going to make it easy to get a job.

I think it is required at "Hot Topic"

[Kevin Miller]

Other issues notwithstanding, your use of a rigid dress code as a metaphor for the ills of conformity or lack of choice is a flawed premise.

The idea of one's self worth or identity being defined by wardrobe is the lazy person's idea of demonstrating individuality. If the only manner that you can display your "individuality" is through buying and wearing a certain brand or style of clothing, then you lead a pretty pathetic life. That's the low road to cheap "free speech". It requires little intelligence and no real effort. On top of this, youth fashions (female especially) have become so vulgar that they tend to disrupt classroom discipline and the educational process.

If one desires to be truly individual and unique, let them define themselves through their character and actions.

The idea that being "forced" to adhere to a proper dress code will lead to anarchy is ridiculous. It only forces today's youth to express themselves in more meaningful ways

[king2ba]

Oh sound the call
to dear old Interlochen
land of the stately pine (ba dum da dum)

Oh sound the call........

I still wear light blue shirts and dark blue pants when I go to work!

[windshieldbug]

At my public school, they didn't care. All they wanted to do was give a grade higher than a D- and move another class on.

That's exactly what their jobs descriptions had been defined for them!

... and I doubt seriously that's why they entered the teaching profession!

[Shockwave]

Chances are you will find dedicated professionals who actually like your kids, want to help them down life's road, have their best interests at heart, are compassionate people who, unfortunately, are getting dragged down by government requirements on every level.

I completely agree, government requirements drag our schools through the mud. Every year there is a new plan, a new change of direction, new this, new that, bigger textbooks, more computers, more, more, more, more, more!!! Meanwhile countries with old fashioned schools blow us away.

There was an interesting lecture at UC San Diego a while back discussing the results of a study comparing the performance of children from dozens of countries on standard tests. Basically, US students were fine through middle school, then they fell drastically behind. The researchers studied the education systems in the top rated countries and found that they shared certain characteristics. First, they had centralized control of curriculum. Second, they had small, simple textbooks that teach one subject step by step. Third, children learned each subject once and in detail.

US curricula are determined locally, and teachers are often confused by (ridiculous) national directives that conflict with local ones. The huge textbook producers cram as many topics as they can into each book so that it has the broadest possible market. Teachers are confronted with huge expensive text books that include so many subjects that each one can only be skimmed over, yet the books are not designed in a concise enough way for skimming.

It takes some real engineering to make a situation this mysteriously bad when common sense about simplicity has always been right. Who sets national education policy? Who divides up subjects into sub-subjects and convinces local school boards to put them piecemeal into curricula? Who controls those textbook companies? That's where the problem lies, not with funding and not with the quality of teachers.

Regarding uniforms, I don't know. I don't buy the safety argument, thats the universal excuse for everything oppressive. A backpack can hide many more weapons than a pair of baggy trousers can. Uniforms reduce pseudo-freedom of expression since kids cant "express" themselves by their choices of store bought clothing. On the other hand, young girls have a much easier time with uniforms because they dont have to bring sexy clothes to stuff themselves into after they get to school.

-Eric

[Shockwave]

Baggy pants with gigantic pockets are not for hiding weapons, they are for fashion first and for shoplifting second. Those pockets are so deep that a knife would be difficult to reach and a gun would swing wildly with each step. Weapons are easy to conceal in school uniforms, so super baggy clothes are just not a safety issue. The number of weapons a kid can conceal in their baggy clothes at one time is completely pointless. Kids who carry weapons know they have to be able to run. Extremely revealing and vulgar clothes are not safety issues either.

I don't really care about kids freedoms per se, but I do have a problem with the use of authoritarian measures when schools should really be providing positive options that make kids forget about being bad. Simple things like learning history and playing in a band distract kids so easily from all sorts of bad behaviors. Prohibitions have never worked and will never work, but distractions work wonders.

The real safety issue is the stirring up of hornets nests. My high school created a problem with gangs and ordinary students by cracking down on anything perceived to be "gang related". One could argue that because parents are so apathetic these days, schools need to step in and assume more parental responsibilities. I don't like the idea of a huge bureaucratic educational entity parenting children when it can't even do a halfway decent job educating them.

-Eric

[SplatterTone]

Having been through the teacher education (was certified to teach Math, Biology, and Chemistry), I suspect a big driver for the uniform thing is to eliminate the hassle of dealing with kids who want to test the limits. Calling what one student wears "OK" and what another student wears "not OK" is often a judgement call. At what point are the clothes a little too provocative? Or a little too offensive? Or a little too Goth? Or a little too tattered? etc. So the easy thing is to require a uniform and be done with. Educators have a ton of legal crap to deal with.

Another purpose the uniform serves is to eliminate (to some degree) class and socio-economic distinctions. Ideally, that was the purpose for ancient Greek sports being done naked. (Now, there's a uniform for you!) But I'm inclined to say they really just wanted to see a bunch of physically fit, naked people. I'm usually not eager to watch sumo wrestling; but if Uma Thurman is participating, I think I could bring myself to watch it.

[TubaRay]

I see where you got a little fired up on the soapbox, Doc. If you should get tired of firing off those rebuttals, let me know. I'm right behind you.

[Shockwave]

In our last discussion, there was a problem about actual history. In this case, you are putting the cart before the horse. I was around (and an adult) when gangs and gang/thug culture became popular. The gangs didn't follow fashion trends, my friend, FASHION TRENDS FOLLOWED THE GANGS. Gangs wore this stuff, for the reasons I stated, way before it was popular. The gang/thug look became popular and trendy later, thanks to rap/gangsta rap music mostly. British Knights started making their shoes in blue and in red to get the gang business, and to tap into the trend that was developing. I am intrigued that you would question/blow off someone whose expertise is in gangs, drugs, and school safety, and who was alive at the time and saw all this with his own eyes, and someone who has personally dealt with it on a daily basis in numerous school districts and on the street, but I digress. We are all, however, entitled to our opinions.

Gangs are not at all new, they have existed throughout history. The wild west had gangs. Ancient Rome had gangs. 1950's american schools had gangs. Modern gangs are directly the result of the "War on Drugs". The arms race with police and high drug prices led to more and more greed and violence. It's really that simple. Prohibitions always cause more problems than they attempt to solve.

What kind of uniforms are you talking about? I'd be glad to visit with you about concealment, and what that really means. Weapons are NOT easily concealed in form-fitting, properly worn clothes. If you think otherwise, you are gravely mistaken. Yeah, I guess thousands of police and law enforcement experts are just a bunch of idiots who don't know what they are talking about. They are all wrong, and you are the only one that's correct. Ooooookaaaayy.... Forgive me if, for my safety and that of others, I don't adopt your philosophy. My kids need a father. A father that is ALIVE. It is THAT serious, my friend.

School uniforms almost always include a sweatshirt, underneath which can be hidden a vast quantity of contraband even if the sweatshirt seems to fit pretty well. If weapons are so difficult to conceal, why do police need to pat down everybody?. You can hardly even talk to an officer these days without being patted down.

Sorry, my friend, but that's just some feel-good, anti-establishment, grade-A bullshit. The lack of authority in schools is why we have problems, thanks to the socialization of society, Dr. Spock, and the generation of parents with the hippie mentality that want to be friends with their kids. A healthy respect (and a little fear) of the principal went a long way when I was in school. We didn't have problems.

Schools have historically gotten their authority from the consent of the parents, and kids knew that if they got in trouble at school they would be in trouble at home. Recently, schools have begun to assert authority of their own, implementing new things all the time. Uniforms in public schools are a new thing. They had dress codes in the past, but not uniforms. Restaurants had dress codes too. Another new thing is integration of law enforcement into schools. My high school (15 years ago FYI) had a staff of law enforcement officers. Schools have always had problems with gangs, weapons being brought to school, bad behavior, etc etc.

Poppycock. We aren't prohibiting clothing, we are just limiting it to that which does not allow the easy carrying of weapons, and that which does not create distractions to learning.

You knew I meant a prohibition of fashion, not clothing. And uniforms do not make weapons hard to carry unless they are spandex body suits.

If you have a gang problem, it must be ELIMINATED. Period. End of story. How you do that is not rocket science. If the school didn't properly handle the students who caused problems, then the school dropped the ball. It doesn't mean the school had a bad idea. Gang activity, influence, and presence should be quashed at the first sign. If you don't, then the battle on behalf of the kids learning, and their overall welfare (and possibly their lives b/c of drugs, violence, etc.), is lost.

People like you actually create the gang problem without realizing it. My point was that there was no gang problem UNTIL the school created one by teaming up with law enforcement and making gang business school business. It's absolutely not the school's business to police who is in a gang, who does drugs, etc etc, and certainly they should never ever team up with law enforcement. All the school should be able to do is notify parents when students do bad things like fight and skip class. Schools are for education, they are not supposed to be the eyes and ears of big brother. Why do parents not want anything to do with schools? Their first indication of something wrong at school is a call from the police department, attorney general, or child protective services. Often the extreme reaction from the school provokes an extreme reaction from the parents.

Since many parents won't do it, who else is left? Of the many of the kids who cause trouble, most of their parents are the same way. Most of the parents of the kids who get in trouble with police, have, in fact, been in trouble with the police as well. The apple rarely falls far from the tree. Every day, I see my principals really try hard to help troubled kids and do what's best for them, but they get their asses chewed by the derelict parents. What then? There's not much legal recourse, so we have to make do with what we have until something better can be implemented.

The mistake is that the school is trying heroically to help the troubled kids rather than just kicking them out like schools used to.

I don't expect you to agree. I'm sure that a few years of life experience will give you a better perspective. Idealism is fine, only if it is tempered with realism. Creativity and expression are important in life, to a degree anyway, but, in the real world, there is a time and place for everything. And the time and place for creativity and expression is not "ALWAYS" or "WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT". Life is not Burger King - you can't always have it your way. Realize that, and life's not such a tough pill to swallow.

Respectfully,

Doc

[/quote]

Of course I don't agree. You think drugs, gangs, and bad parents are the causes of all these problems when really they are just symptoms of larger causes. Bad parenting is a symptom of people working too much to spend time with their kids (for a number of reasons I wont delve into). Drugs and gangs are symptoms of just another prohibition that has failed like all others before it in exactly the same way. The more you crack down on things people enjoy, the more problems you cause. Prohibitionists like you are the idealists. I hate drugs and gangs, but Im a realist.

-Eric

[MaryAnn]

Well, back to uniforms.

I spent my first six years in parochial school wearing a uniform. Then I was abruptly switched to a public school in seventh grade. The scenario went from everyone looking basically alike to the fashion/snob/popular wars. I still at this age remember the more fashionable girls looking at me in amazement because I did not own or wear clothes like they did. It had never bothered me before to start the year with my hem four inches below my knees, and finish the year with it at my knees; now....they whispered in the halls about the English teacher whose hem was four inches below her knees. And she was a really fine teacher, too.

In the uniform school, there was one fewer distraction, and also one fewer source of embarassment. If a kid wore the same dark blue skirt or pants two days in a row....nobody knew. In the public school, kids whose families couldn't afford fancy clothes were made fun of by kids whose families could.

I'm for uniforms, simple ones. In non-gang colors, like white fitted shirts and navy tailored pants. White sneakers.

Doc, I rarely agree with you, being the bleeding heart liberal anti-establishment ageing hippie that I am, but on this one we're pretty close.

However, I also agree about the War on Drugs causing more problems than it fixes, by running up the risk level of the drug trade, which simply brings in a more hardened criminal element, but that is a different discussion and one we won't agree on.

Whoever referred to Asian immigrant kids doing exceptionally well in school touched on the cultural aspects of success in education. It's up to the parents to enforce the kids having to learn; it is up to the schools to provide the materials. Unfortunately that is not how it is working now.

MA

[Captain Sousie]

I work in an inner-city North Las Vegas school (read: tough, inner-city school) and I wholeheartedly support their dress code. This could be due in part to the presence of the Bluds and MS13 but hey, what do I know. Since the dress code was started, we have had a sharp drop in violence and weapons problems. When we have a code that doesn't allow for baggy pants, sweats, jackets, t-shirts, hats and the like, we cut down on the ways that the bangers can express their affiliations and most of them aren't smart enough to figure out a way to get around it.

Yes, we have our gang factions...the skaters, the mexicans and the jocks. These will always be there but they don't usually have blood-wars.

Another thing, doc is right about the concealing problem. You don't necessarily have to have big pockets to tape a knife to your leg, but it is harder to notice it if you are wearing pants that are 5 sizes too big.

By the way, navy is a gang color out here. As is pink, red, white, turquoise, yellow, green, black, and most other colors you can name...except maybe chartreuse.

And no sweatshirts in our school

If you are really worried about our kids' freedoms, how about the right free speech (severely limited in schools), the right to bear arms (again limited), the 'right' to privacy, the protections against unlawful search and seizure...and many other rights.

Bleah,
Sou

[LoyalTubist]

One of the best jobs I ever had was working as a high school band director at a national private school in the Republic of Indonesia. All Indonesian students, whether they be in public or private schools, wear the same basic uniform. Girls wear a white blouse, with a necktie, and a skirt. Boys wear a white shirt, with a necktie, and trousers. Actually the trousers are Bermuda shorts through grade 9. In grade 10, the boys wear long trousers. I taught at a school where the teachers also wore uniforms. The uniform was a navy blue wool suit. Women wore a white blouse of their choice and a skirt (hose was optional). Men wore a white shirt and a long necktie of their choice. The idea of this was to keep the focus on education and not clothing. There were fewer distractions in class and it cut the cost of the clothing budget down. Both students and teachers could accessorize the uniform however they wished, so long as it was tasteful. I never heard anyone complain about having to wear a uniform, from either student or teacher.