A Rebuttal to My High School Students' Arguments Against the Dress Code

My Theatre I class, like pretty much all electives at my school, is a dumping ground.   There are many reasons for this, which will have to wait for a later rant, but because I have so many kids with no interest in acting or drama, I tend to run the acting portions more like a public speaking course, thinking that there are some basic skills that help on stage and also in daily life.

So I have them do speeches on various topics, and for each speech I grade by a different criterion.  For the gesture speech, the students have to write a five paragraph essay (blech,) on the topic of “persuade the principal to make a change to the school, and give three reasons why that would that would be beneficial.”  They then deliver their essay as a speech in front of the class, making sure to use gestures as we discussed in class.

Of course, upwards of 80% of them say the dress code needs to be altered or abolished, and the reasons they provide are delightfully ridiculous.  Bear in mind, they are merely high school students, so a certain amount of ignorance is to be expected and forgiven, but it is so hard not to refute their ludicrous claims.  But being their teacher, and a professional, I can’t comment on their writing in class.

Which is why I’m doing it here.

First off, you must understand that our school’s dress code is not that strict.  They have to wear jeans or slacks, in a small palette of colors, and a polo shirt without logo, which must be orange, black (our school colors,) navy, white, or grey.   Girls may wear skirts that are below the knee (which is usually only for girls with religious requirements, who tend to wear long skirts anyways.)

Of course the kids are able to skirt the system by finding skin-tight, low cut, midriff-bearing shirts, low-rise jeans, and other such hootchification, and administration is notably lax on enforcing the “pull up your damn pants” clause, so there really isn’t much to their complaints.

But to hear them tell it, they are being oppressed like…I don’t know, those people that the history teacher is always talking about, the sad people in all those black & white pictures.

So here are the most popular points they make every year (and there is very little deviation from these points, they all pretty much come up with the same argument,) with my responses.  Enjoy.

Point 1:  “The dress code is a waste of money.  We spend too much on going out and buying clothes for school instead of simply using the clothes we already have.  The clothes they make us buy are too expensive!”

Response:  This one is patently ridiculous, and many kids can’t do this one with a straight face.  School polos, with the school’s logo on them, are available for very cheap from the school itself, and all the area stores know to stock the colors for all area high schools.  You could go to Wal-Mart or any other store and score jeans, slacks, and polos for much cheaper than the clothes they would wear if there was no dress code, and indeed, that is one of the prime reasons for adopting dress codes at any school, an attempt to curb social stratification between the rich and the poor (not that it stops them, see below.)  As for making you buy new clothes, any kid who is not getting new clothes for starting high school probably has bigger problems than fashion choices, so the majority of them were going to buy clothes anyways.  If your extracurricular fashion needs are greatly different, that is simply not the school’s problem, kid.

School is about getting an education, and the dress code is meant to assist with that goal, period.  If you are crying to me that after buying the clothes you need for school (and they all state that they only have five polos in their closets,) than I can’t raise any sympathy for you.  Maybe you should change your fashion sense, or else get a job.  Either way, the idea that we are imposing an unfair economical demand upon them carries no weight.

Point 2:  “The clothes they make us wear are not comfortable, and we can’t focus in class because of how uncomfortable they are.”

Response:  Balderdash.  If you can’t find jeans and polos that are comfortable, you are shopping wrong.  Now many of the kids who say this have no trouble sleeping in those uncomfortable clothes, and have to be repeatedly awoken to keep them from drifting off to sleep, and that does not support a lack of comfort.

Point 3:  “It’s too hot to wear jeans all year in this heat!”

Response:  This is actually a fair point.  Many of our kids walk to school (we have one of the emptiest parking lots in the county, because so few kids can afford cars.)  Walking home in this heat wearing jeans would be extremely unpleasant for me at least, so I can sympathize.

Allowing girls (or those brave few guys) to wear capris (clam diggers for you eldsters,) seems reasonable to me, as long as they are within the normal pants standards (color, pattern, etc.)  Many of the kids suggest shorts, but that is a non-starter.

Allowing kids to wear shorts opens the field up to a myriad of abuses, and telling a girl she can only wear shorts of a certain length tends to punish tall girls, as how long your legs are can affect how short your shorts are.  So shorts, unfortunately, are casualties of those who force us to have a dress code in the first place.

The school could adopt a uniform set of shorts, which would help solve the comfort issue, but would open us up to other difficulties, and makes it an impractical solution.

Of course, you could wear skirts (girls only, they wisely specified that,) or pack a pair of shorts and change into them before walking home.

Point 4:  “The clothes they make us wear are ugly!”

Response:  There is no point in refuting this one.  Tastes vary, and chances are, what a teenager finds appealing (pants down to mid thigh for boys, shirts above the pierced navel for girls,) will not be what is considered attractive for the adults running the school.  So there’s little point trying to change any minds in either direction.

Suffice it to say, the clothes in the dress code are meant to convey a level of decorum and professionalism consistent with long held values and standards in America and to reinforce the message of learning and respectability.  If you don’t like it, congratulations- you’re a teenager.

Point 5:  “If we were allowed to wear what we wanted to, more kids would come to school and we would be better able to focus on our school work and there would be less fights, better grades, and more paying attention in class.”

Response:  Do I really need to respond to this one?  This one is so clearly full of crap you can probably smell it through your monitor.  Are you seriously trying to convince me that poor attendance, lousy attitudes and violence are the result of polo shirts?

I remember this school before we adopted the current dress code, and I can assure you, the problems you mention existed prior to its adoption.  I likewise can assure you that other schools that do not have such a rigorous dress code still experience these problems.

My favorite implication of this one is that it is depression over fashion that causes students not to show up to school.  I realize this makes me a terrible teacher (I’ve come to terms with it,) but if you are the type of person who only wants to come to school if you can dress in a particular way, I’m pretty sure we are better off without you there.

Point 6: “We should be allowed to wear what we want, we need to express ourselves.”

Response:  Oh my God, how I hate this one.  This one is so egregious, it requires three sub responses:

1.     I have no trouble whatsoever seeing the differences between you.  Each student finds ways to accessorize and modify their look to express their own unique fashion sense.  The students do not meld together to become a static block of identical drones.  We can look at you and see your individualism immediately.  If you can’t figure out how to stand out from your peers within the dress code, then I guess you are doomed to four or more years of forcing people to get to know you as a person before they assess you.  You poor thing.

2.     The whole point of a dress code is to foster a sense of unity.  It is harder (but not impossible, see above,) to single people out as an outsider because they do not have on the right clothes, the ‘uniform’ of a particular class, group or clique.  In essence, we are taking away the various (extremely close and clannish) uniforms and replacing them with one more unified one, that of the student.

3.     YOU WANT TO EXPRESS YOURSELF?  GRAB A FUCKING PEN, PRINCESS!  I AM SO SICK OF TRYING TO GET KIDS TO EXPRESS A SINGLE ORIGINAL THOUGHT, ONLY TO HAVE YOU COMPLAIN THAT YOU ‘CAN’T EXPRESS YOURELF’ WITH CLOTHES!  IT WAS LIKE PULLING FUCKING TEETH JUST TO GET YOU TO WRITE THIS DAMN SPEECH, AND YOU HAVE THE STONES TO SAY THAT?  IF THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN EXPRESS YOURSELF IS TO DRESS LIKE A SLUT, MAYBE WE DON’T NEED TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS!

Sorry.  I just get so frustrated with students’ refusal to participate in writing assignments, because they have nothing to say, and then have them pull out a statement like this.

I mean, it would be one thing if it was a kid in our fashion design program, who wanted to wear the clothes that he or she designed, but these kids just want to spend money to buy clothes that other people have convinced them are cool.   Identifying yourself with a perceived image isn’t expressing yourself, it’s labeling yourself, and the only way you should be labeled is by your words and actions.

But that’s just my take on the whole thing.

Thank you all for listening, this has been very cathartic for me.  Join me tomorrow when I consult these teenagers on how to solve the energy crisis, gun control, and what constitutes good music.