Ok,
I don't mean this to be rude, but have any of you ever actually had to wear a uniform? I have had to since kindergarten (I am in 11th now) and everyone I know including myself despises them. People list all these reasons like...
1. You don't need to worry about you're going to wear.
Honestly picking out a shirt and a t-shirt is just as easy as grabbing a polo shirt and pants in the morning.
2. Cancels out students wearing inappropriate clothing.
This is not true, girls will still find
away around. In my experience girls can make a uniform look 10x sluttier than regular clothing. Skirts so far up you can see their underwear, they can still manage to put on the tightest clothes possible, etc. etc.
3. Students wont feel isolated and/or bullied because they're not wearing the latest fashion, or they're not wearing nice clothes, etc.
Although this may be true within the school itself, but when students come in contact with other students or people from outside their school,
they are 10x more likely to be bullied by them. I know I had problems with this when I was a little kid, people would constantly pick on me because I was the only kid wearing a uniform. Now that i am older I never have this problem, but back then it was horrible, and many kids had to deal with it. Thats a big problem with uniforms as well,
when your a little kid and
they can hurt your self esteem so bad. Uniforms are almost always not
flattering to your body, and can make you feel fat or ugly. I personally don't have a problem like that but I used to when i was in middle school, and I see it happen everyday in my school.
4. Prepares them for the future when they need to put on uniforms.
This is somewhat true, but honestly a work uniform is much more widely accepted, and when in an office environment you usually have more freedom on what you want to wear than in a school uniform
enviorment.
5. Saves parents money.
This is a very common misconception. You don't just buy one shirt and one pair of pants and your set.
You have to buy a shirt for everyday of the week,
and enough pants to get you through the week. Then you also have to have extra incase something happens to one of the shirts/pants. Now you are also wearing the same clothes every week, so they wear down much quicker, and don't forget you can outgrow them too. So even though it may appear that your not buying a bunch of clothes from target or whatever, your still paying a shit load for uniform clothing. Oh and in my experience a uniform shirt has cost more than buying a shirt at aeropastel since they have to have the logo of my school and only one place sells them.
6. It helps keeps kids disciplined.
From what I have seen, no it really doesn't, if anything it makes kids worse. Kids are always trying to find ways around the dress code, resulting in punishments from the school. These punishments could easily be avoided if there simply was no uniform. No matter what school you visit kids are going to be getting in the same kind of trouble, but when you add a uniform onto that, they are also getting in trouble for that. In my school the principal is so busy running around yelling at people individually for their uniform that other people can literally do whatever they want. People get away with so much shit because the principal is to preoccupied with enforcing a dress code.
7. It kills people's self esteem
I talked about this earlier, and I would like to harp on it some more. Uniforms ruin your sense of individuality, they can make you feel so plain and boring and useless. It can make people feel like they don't matter in the world, that kid over there looks and acts the same way as me but he is way smarter, so why am I hear? Im just taking up space. When I was going through like 3rd - 8th grade, I was picked on horribly from kids outside of my school. They would always bully me because I wore a uniform and went to a private school. And its not just me this happened to, it happened to many kids who were in the same situation as me. Thankfully when I hit high school, I gained self confidence, I made my uniform work for me, and I gave all the douche bags a "fuck it" attitude. But I still see people in my high school struggle with problems like this. Uniforms can be extremely unflattering, if your not in good shape, it shows, and this makes people feel like crap. People want to be able to express themselves through their clothing, and with a uniform they cannot do that. And the girls who want to look slutty, will still look slutty, there is no way around that. Uniforms aren't going to stop that, so why do we have them?
I have had to wear a uniform my entire life, I know what its like, people can comment on it, but until you have experienced what its like to have a uniform, you can't truly know what its like. Throughout kindergarten - 11 grade, I have yet to see a positive effect that came from uniforms. The only thing I have seen is negative, and I really don't think that they should continue. But hey, the schools aren't going to listen to me. They are going to continue their close minded ways like always.
Oh and wulfy, I didn't mean to attack your post directly, you just had the best list of examples