Dress to Express

School uniforms—are they good or bad for students? There are good points and evidence on both sides, but I for one think that school uniforms shouldn’t be allowed to be worn in school. 

School uniforms may create uniformity among the students, but it also discourages diversity. While the schools may have students with different ethnicities or cultures, not letting them express themselves ruins the general idea of “being yourself”. Students should be allowed to freely dress and decide their appearance. This causes people to be more comfortable with their own style and discover more about themselves. School uniforms limit our creativity and individuality by putting the image on how we are supposed to dress, not how we want. 

Sophomore Yasmeen Khan opposes school uniforms because, “School uniforms restrict people from following their customs in their culture. The people who wear clothes specific to their religion, what are they supposed to do? Go against their customs?”

One misconception about school uniforms is that it reduces bullying, but it does the opposite. There are many incidents and events that have shown that school uniforms are the reason why bullying rates increase. Once students are wearing the same clothes, the comments and insults get more intense due to kids trying to differentiate themselves from each other. These insults lead to violence, therefore the attacks and fights happening. 

Freshman Zaara Ayaz was surprised by this fact, “What’s the point of these uniforms if one of the main reasons to enforce them is doing the opposite of what it’s supposed to do? It would be safer to keep the school dress code the way it is.”

As I was touching on before, the whole idea of not being able to show your style defeats the lessons that we are taught in school or in the real world. We learn about people who change the world, conquer different problems, become world leaders, and they did it while expressing how they truly felt during these times. How are we supposed to grasp the true meaning if we can’t be able to experience it ourselves? 

A big reason schools enforce uniforms is to stop the “dirty and inappropriate” clothing from being worn by students, but this is not the case most of the time. Most students will either find a way to cut their skirts or wear revealing clothing with the school uniforms. In these incidents, students don’t get caught all the time.

All in all, I’m glad we don’t have school uniforms. I feel that self-expression is really important in fostering both a good social and academic atmosphere in school. While it definitely would make mornings easier—without having to deal with the stress of picking out an outfit—I simply feel that the ability to pick out an outfit is a good opportunity to show personality.