This article fascinated me greatly as I’m very much
interested in the recent issue and debates of uniforms in schools, particularly
the huge push for unisex uniforms. At the present this issue is one of the most
debated in the education system in Sydney and as this article explains more and
more schools are thinking about opting away from the ‘traditional’ tunic for
girls and shirt and shorts for boys and instead providing a unisex ‘skort’ as
they are calling them for girls who wish to wear a more comfortable option. (Simalis,
2012, pp.1)
For me when I was at school, being a huge tomboy I would
have loved this option! I did and still hate those primary school tunics,
uncomfortable like no boy could ever understand and for me, even that young, it
wasn’t something I wanted to wear at all. Not that I think children being asked
to wear a particular type of uniform takes away from their independence as one
Anonymous debater on the website debate.org states “School uniforms take away from a student’s independence and creativity”
(Anonymous, 2013, pp.1). I think that opinion is a little extreme as there are
many other ways students can and do express their identities. I just felt
uncomfortable in having to wear that and feeling like there was always a
comparison with the other girls around me who were all different in their own
rights, wearing the same thing.
I don’t understand the big issue of giving students the
opportunity to have a third option with their uniforms. If a girl at school
wants to wear a skort and shirt compared to a tunic, why is this a bad thing?
She’s choosing to wear the uniform isn’t she? She’ll still learn and gain as
much of an education as a girl in a tunic won’t she? I feel like educational
issues like this, especially those and hotly heated as this one that revolve
around culture and identity is missing the simple point of why education is in
place in the first place. There are so many other things to worry about in a
education sense, why does it matter if there is a third uniform option for
students?
For me, this article not only conjured a connection to the
identity politics topic in week 4, but oddly I found myself reciting a quote
from the Phillips, (2206) reading. “Calvin
Klein. For this guy, symbolism was more important than function” (pp. 1). I
realised after thinking why I had made this connection.
There is a relationship between why this boy felt he
had/wanted to wear his Calvin Klein underwear the way he did and the way for
over 50 years uniforms in Australia have stayed extremely traditionally
constant. I believe that parents are scared of change because of the aesthetic
appearance it will produce. Parents of the older generation are used to seeing
tunic uniforms with lined patterns, little tie on the top of a bright solid
coloured collar, the tunic falling into a perfect triangle, because that is
what they see is ‘fitting’, or ‘fitting in’ if we compare it to the Calvin
Klein wearer (no pun intended). We are so scared to go against tradition or
what is the ‘norm’ before us that these seemingly unimportant or less important
issues become front page news.
Anonymous, (2013), ‘Can
the use of school uniforms improve a learning environment?’, [Online]. Available
at: http://www.debate.org/opinions/can-the-use-of-school-uniforms-improve-a-learning-environment
Phillips, A. (2006). What is culture? In Arneil, Barbara and
Deveaux, Monique and Dhamoon, Rita and Eisenberg, Avigail, (eds.) Sexual
justice / cultural justice. London, UK : Routledge, 2006, pp. 15-29.
Silmalis, L. (2012). ‘Students
drop old uniforms to conform to a new reality’, The Sunday Telegraph. [ONLINE]
Available at: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/students-drop-old-uniforms-to-conform-to-a-new-reality/story-e6freuy9-1226532766683
[Accessed 26 September 2013]..
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