Uniform code of conduct

Thank you all for your thoughts on my post about hats and etiquette, and thanks in advance to those who will continue adding to the conversation. I started to just reply to some of the comments, but I ended up writing a post-length piece that was really about a somewhat different topic--which I suppose speaks to how much your comments are valued, that they inspire me to write at further length!

I don't want to put words into anyone's mouths, but I think when Nutsy Fagan was quoted by anomynous corward ("There's too much attention paid to things that don't matter - like what children are wearing.") that she was making a rather different point--that the students themselves are too concerned about what they and their peers are wearing, and that some sort of uniform would fix that.

Still, the point A.C. is making there should be taken seriously. What is the relationship between wearing or not wearing hats (or anything else) and learning? A. C. suggests that "If you feel more comfortable and less distracted when wearing a hat, why not be allowed to?" However, I would like to suggest for consideration an alternative hypothesis, that how one dresses does matter and that feeling "more comfortable" isn't always more conducive to learning.

When discussing this issue with some students at my school this year, one student who had previously been at a school with uniforms suggested that when wearing a uniform, she felt more focused. There was, for her, a sense that she was getting dressed up, as one would for a job, and that in turn added a sense of professionalism to her school work. I observed a similar phenomenon at Pencey, where boys where a jacket and tie, dress shoes and dress socks and a belt every day. I can't quantify this in any meaningful way, but it just felt as though the boys behaved better when they were dressed up than they did in more casual clothes.

That's not to say, of course, that students were not sometimes distracted or disengaged. Likewise, at my school this year I have had students who were perfectly well engaged, brilliant, and wonderful while wearing sweatpants and t-shirts on a dress down day, so I don't want to be accused of over-generalizing. Still, there was a sense that--all things being equal--students were better behaved and more attentive when dressed up.

Of course, with all this said, dressing up can also have the opposite effect. If a student feels sufficiently uncomfortable from the tie constricting his neck or uncomfortable dress shoes, that can be distracting from education itself.

Returning to what I took to be Nutsy's point earlier, there's also the issue of being distracted by what other students are wearing. On the one hand, there's brand-name competition, which I think when it happens, it mostly happens between girls. Wearing the "right" brands to be cool or having new and/or expensive clothes: I imagine it would take a good bit of energy to worry about one's own wardrobe and that of those around you. Then there's the tight or revealing clothing that can be rather distracting as well. Of course, any time you have boys and girls in a classroom together, there's probably going to be some distraction from members of the one gender looking at, thinking about, and wanting to impress members of the other gender, and that would probably be true even if all involved were covered from head to toe in some kind of shape-concealing garments, but it's still true that some clothing choices will exacerbate the situation more than others. Theoretically, a uniform would help this situation as well, which I think was part of Nutsy's point (and, since I started writing this entry, echoed by Catty).

I intentionally referred to this idea as a hypothesis; it's based on the "data" in front of me, though considering how anecdotal my "evidence" is, I recognize the limitations here. Even if this were accepted as generally true, that doesn't mean that instituting a uniform is the best response for any particular school. When the issue came up at my current school, I was, in fact, speaking on behalf of the status quo. On the one hand, I think the transition would probably be more trouble than it's worth, but I also think it's possible that we could lose something by making the change. Considering that, though, would take another blog entry.

Your thoughts are, as always, most welcome. 

tags: school uniforms  dress codes  

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