Dress codes

What's your opinion on high school dress codes? Would they fix more problems than they'd create? Do high school students have freedom of expression while at school? Are kids going to far these days with what they're wearing to school?

I don't think they accomplish much, but I've never been to a school that had one.
I don't think students do have much freedom of expression in high school. And I don't know if kids are going too far or not, but it is kind of sad sometimes.

The high school I where I taught last year had dress code. However, they had become much more lax than when I was a student there. The students could pretty much express themselves however they wanted. I think the supposed rationale behind some of rules make little sense. I favor a relaxed dress code (no super short skirts, etc.), but I have no idea why I had to spend so much of my time imploring students to remove their baseball hats.

A relaxed dress code seems better than no dress code at all - kind of like 'smart-casual' office workplaces.

My first seconday school had no dress code at all, and encouraged students to call teachers by their first names. Some say progressive - I say circus. I actually asked to be transferred to a school with uniforms and fared a lot better, education-wise.

I think there's a disturbing message of materialism that is rampant among teens, all they care about is status items, clothes, cell phones, jewlery. I blame the rap music.

So put me down for yes.

Well when I had a uniform at school.. it wasn't too strict, it was more a color code really. Could only wear 3 certain colors.
But I hated it..
But I added my style to it.. you were allowed any kind of socks.. so if i wore a skirt i would wear colorful stockings

Well they say the kids wont judge the other cause everyone is wearing the same thing. But honestly they did shit all at my school. Everyone still judge everypne else on other things.

Hmm. I could do a lot with three colors. Say, take three white suits of about the same cut, dye them, cut two in half to make a new one then trim it with the third.

Uniforms have their good and bad points. I think some kids come out of high school after having to conform for so long not sure who they are.

Then again , I did keep my pleated skirt, you know, just in case I ever need it...

I went to catholic school, so I wore a uniform for 12 years. In high school, it was dress pants, shirt and tie(all of which could be any color, material, as long as they were dressy) with a school sweater on top in the cold months, dress pants with a school golf shirt in the warm months. I didn't think it was a big deal. Bunch of whiners. Wahhhhh, I can't express myself at school! Not that I'm against expression, but you're there primarily to learn, and the clothes you wear should have no bearing on that. I can see how dressing provocatively(sexual or otherwise) can disrupt that.

Honestly, most jobs won't let you dress however you want, kids shouldn't go into the world thinking they're entitled to a job where they can look however they want at all times. That's where frivolous lawsuits come from.

the only dress code at my HS was no drug references (at least obvious ones), nothing overtly sexual in nature a la Lords of Acid tees, and no profanity. other than that it was fair game.

When I was in high school it was no wallet chains or bandannas, not even on heads. The school said they looked to gangish. Also if you were to wear a shirt with a gun or a drug reference on it, you had to take two strips of black tape and put an X through it. Also hats came off all the time at the teacher's whims.

A funny story. I had a guy in my math class who would always wear Hooters T-shirts and a single female student would always complain to the teacher and make him turn it inside out. Talk about using your capital.

But the girls on the other hand. I was surprised at what they could get away with wearing. If you wanted to picture them naked, you didn't have use a whole lot of imagination!

Dress codes tend to become a diversionary tactic used by school administrators to deflect attention away from important concearns. Instead of dealing with what kids are learning, quality of teachers, properly supplied classrooms, schools obsesse over control of students. In the US it can be quite difficult to distinguish a prison from a school.
Schoools and youth are supposed to be filled with mistaked and learning from those mistakes. People learn what the boundries of society are by pushing and experimenting with those boundries. Eliminating the personal descision of dress removes an important learning and socalization oportunity.

There is an asumption that kids will learn if they are all homogonized and forced to conform.

So far, you're my favorite person here.


[Edited on Jul 11, 2005 by teeseven]

my school dres code: no hats, no short skirts, no halter tops, no drug references, no wallet chains, no spikes.

but it was so lax that some people wore that shit and didn't get in trouble.

I voted yes for the school uniforms, just because I was sick of my wardrobe and wanted to find more ways to be creative. but we ended up not getting it, so i just bought new clothes.

We had a principal at my high school who decided to ban wearing GLOVES. In winter when the school was freezing, we'd wear our gloves...or just to be goofy. But apparently certain gloves dictated gangs...

He was lying to get friends.

There was no dress code when i was in high school. I did have to turn my bettie page shirt insideout,but that is normal school shit.

I would have hated a dress code.

there were a lot of you cant do this and cant do that im my hs but there were also a lot of "getho thugs"(or so they thought they were), in my school.

i feel that a dress code would have been a good thing there.

the worst part was my sr year i scared the asst. princapal with the tattoo on my sholder, i dont have a pic of it but its a really mean looking skull, i wasnt alowed to wear a shirt that showed any of it, it sucked, but i didnt care and would wear sleavless shirts to piss everyone off. and that it wasnt in the school handbook so they really couldnt do anything about it.

In my warcamp school "unnatural hair colors" were ruled "a distraction to the education of others"---I can't tell who wins the award for biggest fuckass.

I think you learn more when your comfortable. Let the lil bastards wear what they want.

My little sister would take her Catholic school uniform to get hemmed approximately 2 inches above her ass (please do not email me about this); one of my co-workers once observed "Is your sister wearing a napkin?"

Even the Catholic uniform was skirts for girls b/c when that shit was enacted I think all girls were ladies who dyed housewives having only had sex the number of times of the children they had, so I would say conform the entire dress code to pants for everyone b/c I find my sister dressing like a whore to school (I would still be upset if it was a bar but school is no place for slut vanity and she was not a slut but that was how all the other girls looked) to be far more offensive than the things "different" kids are being penalized for like "unnatural hair color" and such.

I am "yes" to a uniform b/c it actually avoids the conflicts with issues of rights concerning what is "appropriate" and "questionable." It protects people and prevents judgements b/c I can tell you the things I was pushed around for in school reguarding my appearance hurt very much as it seemed that only the "different" people were a "problem" which they were never.

Green hair=crazy drug addict////suspended
Preppy pot dealer=probably having a rough day////excused
etc (these examples really happened in my school)

wow, the above statement is nearly impossible to translate. i'm sorry