School Uniform Rules

Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.  
Jose Ortega y Gasset

School uniform is an interesting thing.  In many schools it is the subject of conflict – with students not following the rules, and with teachers enforcing ‘high standards’.   There is a sense in which I have some sympathy with these teachers – it makes no sense to have rules if they are ignored.  But the trouble with school rules is that they bring a false sense of order and simplicity to the messy and complex business of educating decent young people.

One amusing point is simply that the rules do not actually mean anything without context – a rule that demands an appropriate length of skirt, for example, simply transfers debate to the meaning of the word appropriate – which will vary by culture, age, intention, character and so on.   I have worked in one school where the solution was to actually specify skirt length in terms of centimetres; but then while this was fine on most, it was indecent on especially tall girls – though within the rule, technically.  So the school went on to define a ratio of skirt to visible thigh; I leave it to you to imagine the Senior Mistress with a tape measure and calculator at the school gate.  Really, you can’t make this stuff up!  So rigid, unbending adherence to rules is just silly.

Some rules should be followed.  Some must be broken. Part of growing up is being able to tell the difference.

Perhaps more importantly, though less obviously, there is a problem with students obeying the rules because, well, they are the rules made by those in authority.  Just following orders has a poor historical precedent!  That cannot be the right model for an education that sets out to create critical, creative, imaginative and moral risk takers who can recognise nonsense for what it is, and who we encourage to speak up about it.

There is a distinction, though, between following rules and having a uniform, and we have powerful reasons to keep uniform.  When given the choice, our High School students voted to keep it, largely for the excellent reasons of pride in their school; ensuring equity between students; avoiding fashion parades; and just not having to make difficult decisions in the morning (for many teenagers, early morning is not good at the best of times!).  I am determined to honour that principled stance.

So what’s the solution here?  Jose Ortega y Gasset’s quote above applies here; frankly, I do not want our students’ or teachers’ time to be focused on this when they could be focussed on something more important; nor do I want to turn positive relationships into adversarial ones.  And I do want to leave a little wiggle room to avoid ridiculous enforcement measures. Uniform SWAT teams are not on my agenda.

So the way forward, for us, in our context, with our student body, is to say ‘if it looks like uniform from across the plaza, then that’s fine.’  Now the best way to look like being in uniform is to actually be in uniform; but honestly, if I can’t tell the difference, then it’s not going to get my attention.  But ripped jeans, or bright red sweatshirts are unwanted and unwelcome – and when we see students wearing them, we will continue to open a conversation about something that we would rather leave to their good sense and judgement.  Given our enormously positive student body, these conversation are rare, and conducted in good humour on both sides.  Parents, please support us here so we can get on with more important things.