Thursday, December 20, 2012 By Adam Corbo
Student sports PJ's - Adam Corbo
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Have you ever wondered why teachers only get on certain students about their dress code? I see it almost everyday, there’s a girl that’s wearing like a spaghetti strap dress that showed the bra straps and short short shorts, the teacher won’t say anything. A girl walks in with a regular tank top and only somewhat short shorts and the teacher sends them to the office, or makes them put on a sweatshirt or another pair of pants.
The other day while I was walking down the hallway I noticed a lot of students who weren’t dressed all that appropriately. For example, boxer shorts showing. All of them were in one big group, and then I saw one girl walking by herself. A teacher walked up to her and told her to go to the front office. Apparently boys aren’t supposed to wear tank tops because the same thing happened to a guy I saw in the hallway.This brings me back to my original topic, selective dress code. The girl that was singled out by the teacher, and she wasn’t exactly “the prettiest girl.” And the guy wearing a tank top wasn’t the tallest or the most muscular.
Some of all this you have to understand though. Most schools ban this sort of stuff to decrease sexual activity in the school, or to stop the spread of gangs. In my old school before I moved to New York from there was a code against any clothes that had crowns on them, for gang purposes. Although when I asked the teacher what gang used a crown sign the teacher couldn’t reply with a legitimate answer. Now not being able to wear crowns is understandable but when people accidentally wear that stuff to school and they get suspended that’s when it gets out of hand. Many popular brands such as Supra and Castles and Crowns have crowns on them.
People try and get away with opposing the school dress code. They wear hats and hoodies, which taking off your hat or hood before walking into a public building was a form of respect. The military still does it but they call it headgear.
What about the size of the clothes that some people are wearing. If a short girl wears a dress would best fit a tall person, they wouldn’t get in trouble. Then a taller girl wears the same dress, she would get in trouble for it because it wouldn’t look like it fits them, or their arms are too long and they go past the end of the dress. Or “loners”, people who don’t exactly hang out with other people. Since they’re not with anybody they would get singled out because they’re more noticeable.
Two words I’ve never heard anyone ever talk to the school supervisors about: “School Uniforms”. Nobody wants school uniforms; they like to have their own form of expression in their clothes. School Uniforms would admittedly stop some of the forms of bullying in schools, but not all of it. Some kids would probably try and rebel against it and try to disfigure it in some way.
Kristin Kelley, a student at Indian River High School, had uniforms in her old schooI. In an interview, Kelley seemed much happier to be able to express her style, compared to Leesville High in Louisiana. When asked what she thought of the uniforms and she said, “I looked like everybody else, and thats not fun.”
They also couldn’t wear specific items while in school uniform. She said the people in her school could not wear earrings or any type of jewelry. They even had to have certain color socks and belts. Which brings me to my next topic, protesting the dress code. When asked how people would try and protest the dress code, and Kelley said, “they would wear different color socks and try to wear piercings... we couldn’t dye our hair, people would come with like pink hair or green hair.... they [were supposed] to have natural hair colors, like brown, black, blonde, and red, just not a bright red because that wouldn’t be natural.”
So you tell us, is having a dress code a good or a bad thing? We welcome your comments below.