Emotional Intelligence | Education
School Uniforms
I have seen school uniforms all over the world. I am very opposed to them. Here are a few of my thoughts.
- In South America it is easy to see how uniforms are part of the military/police state/obedience mentality. See my pages on Peru Education for more on this.
- Some say that uniforms help poor people because they donīt have to buy more clothes. In fact, just the opposite is true. In Peru for example, there is a foundation which is partly based on the fact that many parents don't send children to school because of the cost of the uniform. The foundation raises money to buy the uniforms so the child can go to school. All children I have seen around the world already have enough clothes to walk around in during the weekends. Why force a poor family to buy more clothes? I have personally talked to parents who have told me they could not send all of their children to school because of the cost of the uniforms and supplies.
- I have also personally talked to students who have been denied entrance to the school, in other words denied access to education, because their uniform did not meet the school rules. This could be for something like having holes in one's shoes, for not having the school name on your socks, or for not wearing the right color ribbon in your hair.
- I have often heard that uniforms are to create equality amount the students. Yet it is well know that the more expensive schools have more expensive uniforms. Or as one former British student told me, "the more posh the school, the more posh the uniform.."
- In Argentina the same argument about equality is used to justify uniforms, yet only the poor families, who cannot afford to send their children and teens to private schools, are required to wear what is called a guarda polvo. See Daiana's story
- One day in Indonesia, after visiting a school many times and seeing all the students in their dull looking uniforms, I arrived to find them all in clothes of their own choice. It was so refreshing to see their individuality that day. In an instant I could tell a lot about the person, just by their choice of clothes. When I went back the next time and saw them all in their uniforms again I felt a deep sadness and loss, as if their had been a mass murder at the school. And in fact, in a way, this is what had happened - young people's individuality is being killed all around the world when adults force them into wearing school uniforms.
- To me, Western Europe currently offers the best model of how we can live together. As one example, in the European community, there are no border countrols now, as opposed to the USA where there are more and more countrols. I don't think it is just a coincidence that in Western Europe school uniforms are almost no where to be found. About the only place you will see uniforms is in the Catholic schools. This shows to me that uniforms are a holdover from the past, and countries like the USA which are forcing people to wear uniforms are moving in the wrong direction. As I said many years ago in a speech I gave in Mexico city, "the USA is a world leader, but in the wrong direction."
- In Australia a former teacher told me that he liked uniforms because it "it let's kids know right from the start who's the boss". I think this is the most honest explanation of school uniforms I have ever heard.
S. Hein
May 14, 2007
Buenos Aires
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Article by Steve Twomey