No jeans?

[jtace]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060130/od_nm/australia_denim_dc;_ylt=Al5ZQ0E6kaVUY0Vkdb8cs8PtiB IF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

No jeans allowed huh? sounds a bit overboard to me personally. :)

[Frank N. O.]

Overkill, and btw, they say Jeans are linked to having fun, is it forbidden to have fun in school? Learning can be fun you know, in fact having fun and having higher spirits can make it easier to pick new stuff up.

Btw, jeans is that specifically blue ones or also plain black and sand-coloured ones as well, even though they usually look much more elegant, at least the ones I have.

Frank

P.S. When I first saw the title Josh I thought it was a joke posted in the wrong forum. Although I still think it bears traits of a joke, but I'd like to hear more views on the matter, perhaps from our resident australian veteran posters?

[Chaul]

Jeans are "casual" wear but what else are you going to were in school then. Somehow I don't associate jeans with "fun" or whatever. Everyone wears jeans (some even at office work places) where I live so this sounds outrageous, lol.

[jtace]

I'm agreed with you Chaul, it sounds outragous for where I live in the US as well.

[Commander]

That'll never happen, you'll see all sorts of uproar over the issue, and I bet my bottom dollar there will be countless students openly revolting and wearing jeans on purpose, just to make a point. Sheesh, I can't believe someone would even propose this ludicrous idea! Pretty soon it will be illegal to breathe.

[chris]

Er, there is actually a convention here where most schools require the students to wear a particular uniform, and not just whatever they please.

In some places that means wearing a tie as well. (particularly in the more highly regarded schools). It's a rather good idea IMO, except for when they make kids wear ties in 35 degree celsius or worse heat.

Funnily enough though, in work environments these days, everything is strangely casual. Well I suppose it is for those not on the front line dealing with the general public. I do wear a suit and tie occasionally, but I don't have to - and with the hot weather of recent times I certainly didn't wear a tie.

[Commander]

Just because it is common in your neck of the woods, doesn't mean it is right.... unless of course you mean FAR right; so far right it equals fascism, in which case, yeah, it's "Right" for sure... Maybe they should all grow cheesy little moustaches and sport a bad combover, just to make it all more authentic. "Schultz! Yourz jeans are not in order, reportz to zee gaz chamber ad vwonce!"

[chris]

In some ways, it's a school trying to make it easier to spot students who are not at school when they are supposed to be there. ;)

In other respects, it's an effort to stop the haves and have nots sort of thing. But it's not as strict as you'd imagine - not in the public schools so it seems. The Hitler comparisons are quite far from the truth.

Although you do hear one or two stories occasionally about strict religious schools (almost always "western" religions I might add) enforcing ridiculous rules like expulsion if your hair is longer than a certain length. ;) In just about every one of those cases, the victim of the over-zealous school took the school to court and won.

And then you have the elite schools, the ones you pay large amounts to get into - those are always very conservative, very traditional, very old-school British in all respects. (how else do you think the last bastions of support for the monarchy still survive..) ;)

[Chaul]

Ah, school uniforms.. I have always considered that somewhat "outrageous" too.. ok, maybe not outrageous but unusual. When everyone looks the same, how do you teach the kids to accept other people, "different" people.

Maybe I'm barking at the wrong tree here.. but on the other end of the scale we have the highly revealing clothes of these days. And that just looks wrong on a 13-year old kid too.

And at work the "school uniform" is called "dress code".. eheh. Somehow I still believe that if one wore a tie and a uniform at work, that person would advance higher in his/her rank or career and not as high because of skills alone...

[jtace]

school uniforms are one thing, I'm not big on them but it's not that big a deal if you prefer everyone to wear a uniform. But if you're gona have a uniform, do it right and have a uniform, don't just ban "denim" or whatever else. heh.. :)

[Myshkin]

I used to think school uniforms were a ridiculous idea, but I have been persuaded that it might not be a bad idea. I'm not so much in favor of them, but I don't have a problem with the policy. The arguments for school uniforms that I no longer have a problem with are:

1. Differences in dress exacerbate problems that rise because of differences in family income, culture, and just plain personal preference.

2. The argument that freedom of expression is being bound and gagged is not really that valid. First of all, in most cases kids aren't expressing themselves by how they dress, they are dressing to either conform to whatever group they think they belong to, or they dress however they can afford to. In any case, as long as they are free to express themselves in other ways, there isn't much repression going on. It's like you all say about a lot of jobs, there is a certain dress code, and while you are working you need to adhere to it. The point of such dress codes is not to repress people, it is to promote a certain level of professionalism in a workplace.

BTW, I have not worn a tie in years for work, and I think ties are ridiculous. I dress as casual as I can get away with. If it were up to me, I would always wear denim and casual shirts for work. I wouldn't want to have to wear a suit and tie every day to work. Most of the time I wear slacks and a Polo-type shirt for work, because it seems to be the minimum level of acceptance in most places.

3. Keep the underage girls from dressing like ho's in school. Kids have enough distractions in school without adding fuel to the fire. A girl fully clothed in a nun's uniform is still going to spark the imagination of the boys.

4. Cost of clothes. I used to go back-to-school-shopping with my mom or friends before every school year. Would have been easier and cheaper to just have to buy a certain number of sets of certain clothes. You still have to have clothes for outside of school, but they will wear down less.

This is not to say I am in favor of school uniforms, this is why I don't have a problem with it. There are rational reasons for instituting a dress code, and none of them have to do with fascism or conformity. I don't know about the schools elsewhere or up in Canuck-land, but here it seems that schools are becoming less effective every day because of increasing distractions coupled with lowered academic and behavioural standards. Among other things I might add, like decreased funding per child, although the numbers don't seem to support the theory that throwing more money at the kids is a solution in and of itself. But that is an argument for another day.

Outlawing denim is a weak dress code. It doesn't support any of the above-mentioned points, so I think it is worthless. I think the only pants I ever wore to high school were all denim, which is comfortable, tough, doesn't wrinkle and looks good. If they want to start a weak dress code, they should make everyone wear denim, that would make more (though not much) sense.

:rant: :Peace:

[Mickk]

Having read some, but not all of the posts, it's time to add my 5 cents worth.

This has happened in the past.

It didn't work then (not for long) and it probably won't work now.

Most schools that have uniforms end up doing a 'deal' with a shop/s and when it comes time to get the 'uniform' the parents look at the list of places thoughtfully provided by the school that tells them where to get the needed items and they end up going to the place in question.

Now for the families that are even 'kinda well off' it's no great drama to go and pick up the 'uniforms', but when it comes to families that are pushed to just get school books....

When I went to school at the local high school, the 'uniform' we had to wear was a white shirt and blue pants. No restrictions on what material it was made out or whatever, just white top, blue bottom.

Simple. Everyone wore jeans of one brand or another, including a few of the lady teachers and one of the librarians ( Miss Thwaits & Miss Harrison!! :epant: )

Of course it will work for a little while, but gradually, one person will wear jeans to school because their uniform pants/skirt are dirty/ripped/got eaten by the dog and jeans will slowly come out of the closet again.

Jeans are here to stay, unless they make it a LAW that you can't wear jeans to school and I can't see that happening, can you?

[VQ]

We wear business pants, what they are don't matter, but we need to wear a school polo shirt during term one and four and two and three we wear business shirts with a tie, but it's not too heavily enforced the older you get, and we wear a wool/polyester blend jumper, but really, our school is quite lax that way, private schools, well they care heavily about their rep so they make them wear their winter uniform in term 2 and they have to wear their jumper and blazer all the time no matter how hot it is, it's stupid.