School uniforms and preperation for work life

Ray Palmer · 05-12-2013 05:55PM #1

I remember when I was in school school dress policy was relatively relaxed compared to other schools. In saying that there were still some silly enforcements. While there are arguments for dress code revolving around stopping students getting into fashion show battles in schools that was never the emphasis in our school. They used to go on how it was a preparation for life. According to the school we would have to wear ties in work, wouldn't be able to have long hair or beards. Earrings were never going to be allowed in work for men etc... There was also talk about representing the school and uniforms made the pupils look better.
Of course once I started working none of these things were issues. So how do other people look at the belief school uniform prepared you for what work would be like?

ScumLord · 05-12-2013 05:59PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Of course once I started working none of these things were issues.

That's because your generation took over and what's acceptable changed with it.

We're not really a uniform type of people anymore. We don't automatically respect someone for having more bling or fancier suits. Hopefully these days we're teaching children the type of mental skills they'll need in the workplace (but more importantly for life) rather than conforming to your role inside a large corporation.

ghogie91 · 05-12-2013 05:59PM

I still act like im in school when it comes to these rules haha

Ray Palmer · 05-12-2013 06:02PM

ScumLord wrote: »

That's because your generation took over and what's acceptable changed with it.

.

They still enforce the same rules now in the same school with the same reasons. That is 20+ years later

o1s1n · 05-12-2013 06:02PM

School uniforms are a great way to put all the kids on a level playing field. There's no 'haha, look at Jimmy, he can't afford XYZ'

Obviously hated them at the time (and loved non uniform days) but looking back they're definitely a good idea.

ScumLord · 05-12-2013 06:04PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

They still enforce the same rules now in the same school with the same reasons. That is 20+ years later

They're still using teaching practices from decades before that. Just about every public service in this country is hopelessly stuck in the past.

Mint Aero · 05-12-2013 06:09PM

o1s1n wrote: »

loved non uniform days

I hated your type when I was in school

Agricola · 05-12-2013 06:10PM

o1s1n wrote: »

School uniforms are a great way to put all the kids on a level playing field. There's no 'haha, look at Jimmy, he can't afford XYZ'

Obviously hated them at the time (and loved non uniform days) but looking back they're definitely a good idea.

Yeah thats the number one reason to have them. Even 20 years ago, I can imagine the kind of slagging certain people would have gotten for wearing Penny's best. What it would be like in this age of ultra competition from the age of 9 and cyber bullying!

kowloon · 05-12-2013 06:14PM

My secondary school had a jumper that cost more than a full set of designer gear. The poorer kids still got singled out because they had patches on the elbows of their jumper. The whole 'great leveller' argument holds no weight with me. Anyway, they judge each other these days on which smartphone they have.

old hippy · 05-12-2013 06:15PM

I don't remember any of us liking the uniform. Did it prepare me for work? LOL, not in the slightest. I rarely wear a tie, unless I feel like it and in the sunnier months, I wear what could be described as "colourful attire". That said, if I was the public face of the company and had to do a lot of meet & greets with clients and such, of course I would "smarten up", so to speak.

o1s1n · 05-12-2013 06:18PM

Mint Aero wrote: »

I hated your type when I was in school

Were you the Rain Man type?

Did non uniform days break your regimental routine which without, you wouldn't be able to get through the day?

Mint Aero · 05-12-2013 06:20PM

o1s1n wrote: »

Were you the Rain Man type?

Yeps, ergo you can't mock me now

anncoates · 05-12-2013 06:23PM

The notion that wearing a uniform in school somehow turns you into a unthinking drone later in life is a confection best left to the students union bar

It's a set of f_cking clothes .

The Backwards Man · 05-12-2013 06:28PM

We had a hotshot quiz team for blackboard jungle one year and we cruised our first round wearing (under protest) our school uniforms. We were so impressive in blazing away the opposition that we convinced our principal that
by wearing our own clothes it would gives us more freedom of inspirational thought to win the quiz. He finally relented, we got hammered in the next round, he was pissed at me for the rest of the year and finally got me expelled for shaving my own hair in Honours Maths. (overturned on appeal):)

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I forget what it is.:o

old hippy · 05-12-2013 06:30PM

anncoates wrote: »

The notion that wearing a uniform in school somehow turns you into a unthinking drone later in life is a confection best left to the students union bar

It's a set of f_cking clothes .

For me, it was the connotations of donning the garb. It meant, "oh Christ, back to school" - and I didn't much care for parts of my educational years.

KatyMac · 05-12-2013 06:30PM

o1s1n wrote: »

School uniforms are a great way to put all the kids on a level playing field. There's no 'haha, look at Jimmy, he can't afford XYZ'

Obviously hated them at the time (and loved non uniform days) but looking back they're definitely a good idea.

Have to buy daft shoes for my daughter, they cost over 100 yoyos. Can just about afford them by the fact that I didn't buy the school jacket. Don't think it benefits the child much especially as she has loads of other perfectly good shoes that she can't wear to school! So, Jimmette can't afford XYZ.

ScumLord · 05-12-2013 06:38PM

anncoates wrote: »

The notion that wearing a uniform in school somehow turns you into a unthinking drone later in life is a confection best left to the students union bar

It's a set of f_cking clothes .

by that logic it would surely mean that wearing a school uniform won't better acclimatize you to the work place.

uniforms may have been introduced in an attempt to make a level playing field but at this stage there another alternative source of income for schools that can charge a royalty to use their crest. It's basically the same thing as brand companies buying cheap clothes, putting their logo on it and charging designer prices.

Karl Stein · 05-12-2013 06:43PM

The sum total of the school experience does inculcate children with the 'values' that perpetuate societal structures with deference to authority a central tenet.

shruikan2553 · 05-12-2013 06:47PM

Ah yes, 15-20 euro for a shirt that had to be bought in a specific shop. It was for the best I suppose, many werent able to afford the designer clothes because they spent all their money on the damn shirts, never mind the rest of the uniform.

The only time I have had to do work in anything that wasn't casual was to go to a job interview. I dont know where they expect us all to be working after school if the uniform is meant to prepare us for it.

Galwayguy35 · 05-12-2013 06:53PM

Twas a funny system in our school, the girls had to wear a uniform but we didn't.

Bipolar Joe · 05-12-2013 07:01PM

Says a lot about how good they think their own educational system is. "John-Joe, you're gonna be wearing a uniform until you retire, so might as well get used to it. And flipping burgers."

o1s1n · 05-12-2013 07:02PM

KatyMac wrote: »

Have to buy daft shoes for my daughter, they cost over 100 yoyos. Can just about afford them by the fact that I didn't buy the school jacket. Don't think it benefits the child much especially as she has loads of other perfectly good shoes that she can't wear to school! So, Jimmette can't afford XYZ.

Where are you sending your kid to school, Eton? :eek:

KatyMac · 05-12-2013 07:05PM

o1s1n wrote: »

Where are you sending your kid to school, Eton? :eek:

:D:D:D That's a couple of years down the track:D:D:D

Tiddlypeeps · 05-12-2013 07:10PM

I used to always get in trouble for not having the right uniform bits. The uniform was crazy expensive and if bits went missing/got broken my parents couldn't always afford to replace them. Especially some Septembers when me or my sisters might have grown a lot and needed a whole new uniform. My parents often lived week to week moneywise so this was really tough on them.

I used to get in trouble for not having the proper school coat. It was €70 and that was about 10 years ago. The jumper was like €50 and I think the skirts were pretty close to that too. €10 for a tie. We had to get a very specific pair of socks that cost €10 a pair and only one shop in the town sold any of these things. I had spare shirts and socks but my folks could never afford to get me spare jumpers or skirts because they were so pricy so I had to make sure to wash them as soon as I got in from school so they would be dry by the next day when they needed it.

It would have been much easier on my parents if they could just buy us clothes in penny's. Clothes we needed anyway because we couldn't wear uniforms on the weekend so it would have been much more afford able too. I would have been happier to get the odd comment from snobby children about wearing penny's clothes than getting in trouble regularly from the teachers from not having the full uniform. Kids make fun of you for that too because if it happens often enough they think you are doing it deliberately to be a rebel.

Uniforms could be a great equaliser if they allowed you to wear generic stuff but school boards abuse the parents by partnering up with their mates down the road who run the local clothes shop creating a monopoly on uniforms because they can't be gotten anywhere else. It's **** and it puts a crazy amount of pressure on struggling parents, especially when you typically have to buy new ones around the same time that you need loads of new school books too.

Gbear · 05-12-2013 07:20PM

Uniforms are a load of bollocks.

Kids are always going to find things to be competetive about.
If it's not clothes, it'll be phones and other gadgetry or who goes on the piss in some field the most often.

Fair enough having a dress code - schools should be entitled to demand that you don't look like a scummer - but a specific uniform seems like a money-making excercise and needless authoritarianism.

Ray Palmer · 05-12-2013 08:00PM

o1s1n wrote: »

School uniforms are a great way to put all the kids on a level playing field. There's no 'haha, look at Jimmy, he can't afford XYZ'

Obviously hated them at the time (and loved non uniform days) but looking back they're definitely a good idea.

I kind of addressed that in the opening,it wasn't being said as a prevention for clothes snobbery. As a method it is useless, bags,shoes,coat,stationary all give the game away.

I always felt the idea of it as a way to limit slagging based on wealth or taste was pointless. The school seemed pretty honest about why the did it.

looking_around · 05-12-2013 08:10PM

I remember in my school cost
Jackets: 120
Trousers: 70(for girls) Boys could pick up any grey trousers from anywhere. (I always felt that was sexist.)
Skirts: 50 (that would have to be stitched to the wearer's knee height.)
Jumpers: 50. (sh!t yokes, freezing in winter, sweating in summer.)
Shirts: 25

Not allowed anything else but the uniform, shoes had to be black.

This was all to "level the playing field".

My mom told them to feck off with the jacket. And many others did the same. Though the school did nag and anyone in sports were forced to get a jacket for going to other schools for matches and stuff.Or would be off the team.
_____
I knew many kids that only had 1 set. By the end of the year, it would be falling apart. And the school would have the cheek to point out tares in the uniform of someone in front of the whole class. On how "shameful" it is. and that they should look after the uniform better.
Ridiculous bullshi!t. Uniforms are to make the school look better. Make everyone look the same in the hopes of teaching kids to "conform" and creating a society that doesn't question. ..Sadly..in that, it seems to be working.

April O Neill II · 05-12-2013 08:12PM

kowloon wrote: »

My secondary school had a jumper that cost more than a full set of designer gear.

Really? I had one jumper for the senior cycle (1999-2001), it cost 30 quid.

Sulla Felix · 05-12-2013 08:15PM

o1s1n wrote: »

School uniforms are a great way to put all the kids on a level playing field. There's no 'haha, look at Jimmy, he can't afford XYZ'

Obviously hated them at the time (and loved non uniform days) but looking back they're definitely a good idea.

Bullsh1t. If Jimmy isn't being bullied for not being able to afford XYZ he'll be bullied for something else. Kids are creative like that.

saltyjack silverblade · 05-12-2013 08:22PM

I frequently purchase XYZ as I am a single educated male in my late 20s with no attachments or responsibilities. Only yesterday I was telling a colleague how great my life was being able to afford XYZ. She, a divorced single mother of a teenager can only afford the ABC. But that is really her choice. Her husband left her after a few years which shows she is not a good judge of character. She also hates her job which also makes her a poor decision maker. I informed her of a payment scheme that would allow her to consolidate her alphabet shopping and with frequent low cost payments, she could even afford JKL.
But she can never have XYZ.

looking_around · 05-12-2013 08:24PM

saltyjack silverblade wrote: »

I frequently purchase XYZ as I am a single educated male in my late 20s with no attachments or responsibilities. Only yesterday I was telling a colleague how great my life was being able to afford XYZ. She, a divorced single mother of a teenager can only afford the ABC. But that is really her choice. Her husband left her after a few years which shows she is not a good judge of character. She also hates her job which also makes her a poor decision maker. I informed her of a payment scheme that would allow her to consolidate her alphabet shopping and with frequent low cost payments, she could even afford JKL.
But she can never have XYZ.

da fuq?

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