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Private Schools Should Have Students Wear Uniforms

Interesting points. Thank you for a well thought out argument. 1. I accept the suggested statement that uniforms make it harder for children to identify each others' socioeconomic status, however I doubt that that necessarily stops discrimination. Clothes are usually an obvious flag of how much wealth the family of the child has. However, once you remove that as an identifying factor, you'll just find more subtle trends being utilized by high income students. Things like watches, jewelry, backpacks, and even school supplies. Even if all the children are dressed the same, those that wish to victimize others will find a way to identify their victim. 2. It's funny that you say clothes are a distraction when I've always felt the inverse is wildly more distracting. But to be serious, I doubt this. When one observes an easily distracted child, they'll notice that if there's no stimulus to distract the child they'll generally end up fidgeting or finding some other way to amuse themselves. Clothes aren't the issue here. It's the child's attention span. And if that's the issue, it seems that we would be doing the children a disservice by sending them out into the world without teaching them how to focus when something as common as a t-shirt can steal their attention. 3. Your presence at the school identifies you as part of the student body. I doubt that promoting school spirit is worth taking away the right of the child to project their personality through their attire. To respond to this, please explain to me the merits of school spirit and how they improve the education of a student. 4. Conformity is not something to strive for. Conformity suppresses creativity, which is extremely important in the adult world. Look at the field of adverising, which is taking in massive amounts of graduates every year. Your main objective is to think up some kind of catchy ad campaign that will sell the product in question. In making everyone think the same, we hamper their ability to perform these kind of jobs. And by making them all feel like they are the same through promoting matching attire, we're shaping their minds as well. There's also the issue of over achievement. By leading children to emulate their peers, you may suppress the capabilities of those that go beyond their fellow students in potential. 5. Someone that has malicious intent is generally going to plan out their ill doings on the campus. Uniforms are not hard to obtain. Even if they didn't match the students, assuming they wanted to cause true harm, the teachers and administration would likely be powerless to do anything. This point is ineffective if the majority of attacks on schools are examined. The only true way to stop this trend is by arming teachers or putting armed personnel at the schools. In addition: Out of curiosity, how do you feel about religious articles? These can definitely contribute to children classifying each other, but it seems that we as a culture don't want to restrict students from fulfilling the obligations of their faith. Would you say such articles are allowed, or prohibited?