What’s the point of a school uniform? Should schools still be using them? Is a simple dress code better?
According to Chloe Zomorodi’s article, school uniforms first originated in 1222. They were used to standardize the dress code among the boys who went to the school. Dress codes have been used many times throughout history. As far back as 1873, men could wear jeans to work; women weren’t allowed to wear jeans until 1934, when jeans were specifically made for women.
Schools started using a dress code around the 1960’s, when clothes started to get more revealing. Now, I could talk all about problems with the dress code system, but we’re talking about uniforms. Nowadays, uniforms in schools are less common in public schools; they’re mostly confined to private schools.
On the bad side, according to an article by Amelia Josephson, having uniforms can limit self-expression and hurt kids’ self-esteem. It only teaches them to conform. It can also be expensive for the parents, or even sexist for some students.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind having a uniform. It would eliminate my stress when choosing an outfit. It would also save me a lot of time instead of doing laundry. Just imagine you wake up late, you forgot to choose an outfit, and none of your clothes are clean. What do you do? Do you pick up your less dirty clothes and wear those out of the house? Do you painstakingly dig through your closet hoping to find something clean? Do you just grab whatever you see first and hope your outfit matches?
I choose my outfit before I go to bed so this doesn’t happen to me. But it still takes me a while. I like being able to express myself through my outfits, but at the same time, I can’t show too much expression for fear of getting made fun of. There’s also the problem of comfort over style. Now that we’re in the colder months, there’s nothing better than wearing comfortable, warm sweatpants. I have a wide variety of different styles, colors, and types of sweatpants. It’s the first option I jump to when choosing an outfit. But I try my hardest to not wear a variety of sweatpants in only one week. Maybe if I feel like it, I’ll pull out one of my nicer outfits.
All of that aside, if we had uniforms, it wouldn’t matter. Depending on what school you’re in, you can accessorize and make them your own, too. To me at least, that sounds nice. I don’t have to stress over what outfit I want, and I get to accessorize an aesthetic uniform. It’s a win-win! For me at least.
