Teaching Children...
- Thread starter SimplySouthern
- Start date
I am in the schools on a weekly basis offering counseling, as someone to talk to about thier feelings, as someone to share thier emotional baggage with, as someone just to vent and get all of there chest. I enjoy working with the kids helping them find alternative outlets for pent up angers and frustrations.
Here's what I think, if anyone really cares. 
When I was in High School, which was a while ago but I don't think certain things ever change, my family didn't have much money, and what we did have, Mom spent on booze. So needless to say I didn't have nice clothes. Yes, I got teased for it, yes I got ostracized, but I lived, didn't I?
The "uniform" and No Brand Names decree can only work if everyone gets exactly the same stuff. That goes for haircuts, everything. If one kid can't afford to get the latest haircut, he's going to be teased for it. If another can't afford acne treatment, they're going to teased and called Pizza Face. If yet another child has a learning or physical disability, they're going to be teased for that. Wearing the same color of clothes isn't going to help anything.
The school needs to deal with any harrassment of students that's going on, and give the kids an outlet to talk about it. And they need to really do something. There should be real consequences for any child that's harrassing another. Not just telling them don't do that any more.
I'm a student teacher, so maybe I have a little more vested interest in this than some of the rest of you. I've seen kids will be cruel, even when you think there's nothing left for them to pick on each other about. They will always find a way to fight for their niche in the school heirarchy.
When I was in High School, which was a while ago but I don't think certain things ever change, my family didn't have much money, and what we did have, Mom spent on booze. So needless to say I didn't have nice clothes. Yes, I got teased for it, yes I got ostracized, but I lived, didn't I?
The "uniform" and No Brand Names decree can only work if everyone gets exactly the same stuff. That goes for haircuts, everything. If one kid can't afford to get the latest haircut, he's going to be teased for it. If another can't afford acne treatment, they're going to teased and called Pizza Face. If yet another child has a learning or physical disability, they're going to be teased for that. Wearing the same color of clothes isn't going to help anything.
The school needs to deal with any harrassment of students that's going on, and give the kids an outlet to talk about it. And they need to really do something. There should be real consequences for any child that's harrassing another. Not just telling them don't do that any more.
I'm a student teacher, so maybe I have a little more vested interest in this than some of the rest of you. I've seen kids will be cruel, even when you think there's nothing left for them to pick on each other about. They will always find a way to fight for their niche in the school heirarchy.
Macbeth said:
Thats bound to happen some times shocking details that we find out about one another can be just that shocking and take sometime to wrap our minds around in order to figure out how to approach with respect. You are an Overcomer, don't let silence draw you down.
CreamyLady
Uncompromising Visionary
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2000
- Posts
- 2,685
When I was in school the dress code mainly concerned itself with the length of a girl's skirt. My own skirts were within the code -- my mother never went with the times -- but I'd roll the skirt up as high as I could before measuring, just on principle. Since so many other girls did that, eventually they scrapped it. The entire female student body was clogging detention.
Kids can be vicious, true, but the harder lessons of life are learned in the sandbox. The kid who has hand-me-downs, or whose mother shops at K-Mart may indeed get teased about his or her clothes, but if it weren't the clothes, it would be something else. Hair, or speech, or grades, or taste in food . . . you name it. Kids will a difference, any difference, and run with it.
I would like to see compassion taught from an early age -- some kids' families don't have a lot of cash; clothes do not the man, or woman, make; material things are just things, and mean nothing in the long run.
However, since compassion is one of those "values" that act as a buzzword to fanatics -- "No one teaches MY kid values except me!" -- it is easier to impose uniforms. They might as well, and set up a fund for uniforms for poorer kids. It would be easier than the squabble they are letting themselves in for.
Kids can be vicious, true, but the harder lessons of life are learned in the sandbox. The kid who has hand-me-downs, or whose mother shops at K-Mart may indeed get teased about his or her clothes, but if it weren't the clothes, it would be something else. Hair, or speech, or grades, or taste in food . . . you name it. Kids will a difference, any difference, and run with it.
I would like to see compassion taught from an early age -- some kids' families don't have a lot of cash; clothes do not the man, or woman, make; material things are just things, and mean nothing in the long run.
However, since compassion is one of those "values" that act as a buzzword to fanatics -- "No one teaches MY kid values except me!" -- it is easier to impose uniforms. They might as well, and set up a fund for uniforms for poorer kids. It would be easier than the squabble they are letting themselves in for.
DarlingBri
Brit Wit
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2001
- Posts
- 1,262
MacBeth...
I'm not uncomfortable with things you've gone through in your life. However, how they relate to school uniforms is not clear to me.
Since we're off topic, and on the Terrible Things That Have Happened To Me subject, I'd just like to point out that most of us have had terrible things happen to us in our lives.
One in three people are vicitims of physical abuse in the home.
One in four women are victims of rape.
One in five children in the US lives below the poverty line.
More than half of all children grow up in single parent families, and while that is not terrible in itself, many of the stories behind that statistic are horrifying.
I'm not knocking anyone's personal tragedies. But given the prevelence of horrible things happening to nearly everyone out there, people should take courage from the ability of average human beings to triumph over the most difficult events.
And I'm not talking about the people we make out to be heros. I'm talking about the fact that your neighbour was raped, and 20 years later has a healthy sex life with her husband. The fact that your boss grew up abused but broke the cycle and does not beat his children. The fact that your grocer grew up in the most dire innercity poverty, but used his education to escape.
It is so, so easy to shout out that one is a victim, and so admirable to quietly and triumphantly beat one's own odds.
[Edited by DarlingBri on 04-15-2001 at 10:15 AM]
I'm not uncomfortable with things you've gone through in your life. However, how they relate to school uniforms is not clear to me.
Since we're off topic, and on the Terrible Things That Have Happened To Me subject, I'd just like to point out that most of us have had terrible things happen to us in our lives.
One in three people are vicitims of physical abuse in the home.
One in four women are victims of rape.
One in five children in the US lives below the poverty line.
More than half of all children grow up in single parent families, and while that is not terrible in itself, many of the stories behind that statistic are horrifying.
I'm not knocking anyone's personal tragedies. But given the prevelence of horrible things happening to nearly everyone out there, people should take courage from the ability of average human beings to triumph over the most difficult events.
And I'm not talking about the people we make out to be heros. I'm talking about the fact that your neighbour was raped, and 20 years later has a healthy sex life with her husband. The fact that your boss grew up abused but broke the cycle and does not beat his children. The fact that your grocer grew up in the most dire innercity poverty, but used his education to escape.
It is so, so easy to shout out that one is a victim, and so admirable to quietly and triumphantly beat one's own odds.
[Edited by DarlingBri on 04-15-2001 at 10:15 AM]
Orlanth
The Cheeky One
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2001
- Posts
- 17,860
Re: MacBeth...
Well, its strage how I lead it off topic. But I did.
I am not saying what I went throw is the worst, hell no. Some of the things I have seen, make what I went throw appair as a little scracth.
But, any ways back to the topic of this Thread..........
DarlingBri said:
Well, its strage how I lead it off topic. But I did.
I am not saying what I went throw is the worst, hell no. Some of the things I have seen, make what I went throw appair as a little scracth.
But, any ways back to the topic of this Thread..........
Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2000
- Posts
- 23,768
Back on topic...
Personally, I feel that if school uniforms are required, then they should also be issued.
Schools do require dress codes, but the one described at the beginning of this thread is strict enough to make for a de facto school uniform without addressing the controversy of requiring uniforms.
Schools are a place of learning, and not all of that learning is on the official curriculim. Much of what is, or should be, learned in school is how to deal with other people. Attempting to create a mass of identically dressed clones is doomed to failure, because the rules don't apply to anything outside of the school boundaries.
[mild sarcasm]
The rich kids will simply change into their desigenr labels after school and the poor kids will carefully pack away their "school clothes" and don their patched, hand-me-down rags. The jealousies will magically appear outside of any possible supervision.
[/mild sarcasm]
Any clothing which is clean, sericeable, and doesn't reveal any primary or secondary sexual organs, should be permissible.
The only thing that should be forbidden on that clothing in the nature of logos and words are "the seven words you can't say on television" or the local definition of obscenity.
Any other standard removes much of the experience of learning to cope in a diverse society. In Todd's very apt words, it hides the symptoms instead of treating the disease.
Personally, I feel that if school uniforms are required, then they should also be issued.
Schools do require dress codes, but the one described at the beginning of this thread is strict enough to make for a de facto school uniform without addressing the controversy of requiring uniforms.
Schools are a place of learning, and not all of that learning is on the official curriculim. Much of what is, or should be, learned in school is how to deal with other people. Attempting to create a mass of identically dressed clones is doomed to failure, because the rules don't apply to anything outside of the school boundaries.
[mild sarcasm]
The rich kids will simply change into their desigenr labels after school and the poor kids will carefully pack away their "school clothes" and don their patched, hand-me-down rags. The jealousies will magically appear outside of any possible supervision.
[/mild sarcasm]
Any clothing which is clean, sericeable, and doesn't reveal any primary or secondary sexual organs, should be permissible.
The only thing that should be forbidden on that clothing in the nature of logos and words are "the seven words you can't say on television" or the local definition of obscenity.
Any other standard removes much of the experience of learning to cope in a diverse society. In Todd's very apt words, it hides the symptoms instead of treating the disease.
DarlingBri
Brit Wit
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2001
- Posts
- 1,262
Re: Re: MacBeth...
Could you please stop spelling "through" (to pass from one side to another) as "throw" (to toss or hurl, as a major league pitcher does). You can also use "thru" if you're American, but it's not standard.
Macbeth said:
Could you please stop spelling "through" (to pass from one side to another) as "throw" (to toss or hurl, as a major league pitcher does). You can also use "thru" if you're American, but it's not standard.
CelestialBody
Starlet of India
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2000
- Posts
- 7,904
Blackbich
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2001
- Posts
- 2,564
No No No School Uniforms!
My family didn't have much money and I grew up always being teased about my clothes. But, if it wasn't that it was something else. A child has to learn to deal with criticism, they will sure as hell have to deal with it as an adult.
Uniforms are just covering up the real issues. Until society is willing to figure out what those are and deal with them head on, there's going to be violence in schools - no ifs, ands or buts about it. Taking a bandaid and putting it over a gushing carotid artery isn't going to fix it.
My family didn't have much money and I grew up always being teased about my clothes. But, if it wasn't that it was something else. A child has to learn to deal with criticism, they will sure as hell have to deal with it as an adult.
Uniforms are just covering up the real issues. Until society is willing to figure out what those are and deal with them head on, there's going to be violence in schools - no ifs, ands or buts about it. Taking a bandaid and putting it over a gushing carotid artery isn't going to fix it.
Similar threads
