OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : my turn : There’s Nothing Original About Uniform Appeal
Why not wear uniforms to school, I say. To start with, just think how much money we’d save.
Most people spend at least $600 a year on clothes. If we got uniforms, they would cost about $200. Of course, we’d still have to spend about $500 on clothes to wear after school and on the weekends. With limited wardrobe choices for school, our uniforms would wear out quickly, and we’d have to buy some replacement items--for an additional $100. That $800 is a great deal compared to the $600 we spend now.
And uniforms would eliminate gangs and cliques. I mean, no one chooses friends on their looks or attitude or interests or (gasp!) even their personality.
If we all dressed alike, we’d all be one, big, happy family. We couldn’t start a purple hair-clip gang or a ponytail gang; too many other people already wear those items.
Plus, we’d be more focused on learning. If we don’t have to worry about judging everyone else’s clothes, we could spend our energy on our books. Of course, we wouldn’t ever look at anybody’s hair or anything. And who cares that these uniforms would probably be uncomfortable--it would wake us up and make us focus that much better.
And we’d be so much better behaved. If everyone dressed the same and thought the same and acted the same, we’d have no problems at school. Everyone would even agree on what kind of music to play at lunch.
No one would beat up anybody because there would be no disagreements. And, guess what? We’d never have to do schoolwork or actually learn anything--there wouldn’t be enough time in the school day. Our teachers would be too busy making sure our shoes were shined and our buttons straight. As a result, teachers would never notice a little smoking or drinking or a couple of playful gunfights. (They might notice if someone started bleeding--the student would be given a referral for dirtying his uniform.)
Classroom discussions would be shortened, too, because opposing viewpoints would not exist. And when we grow up, we’d still all think the same. We won’t have to have elections--we’ll all support the same measures and the same candidates. We won’t even have political parties. We’ll all be perfect little clones of the ideal citizen--unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring.
See? Uniforms benefit us all.
