Pros and Cons School Uniforms Essay

In the many schools around the world, whether it being public or private, to elementary to high schools, no matter what kind of schools, they are all eligible for acquiring school uniforms. School uniforms can have a positive impact on the school by changing the factors that cause problems among the students. By having school uniforms mandatory, many changes of a student’s behavior can change. For example, when students are obligated to wear uniforms, they would have better attendance and less verbal abuse with other classmates. But on the other hand, it can also have a negative impacts on a student’s individuality and esteem which can affect their emotion and atmosphere around school. It is a great idea to implement a system on school uniforms because of the positive outcomes that are received. Some of the good outputs that are better grades, little to no harassments, better a attendance record, and more as well. To start of with the positive effects of school uniforms, one of the advantages to wearing school uniforms, is that it can contribute to improved attendance. In the morning, children have a hard time waking up due to the earliness in which they are obligated to do so. This focus can be reached towards the females. This really makes an impact on girls. Girls spend more time than guys on apparel. Girls have more sense of details when it comes to fashion and find it more important to boost their self-esteem. This can be time consuming in the morning if they do not wake up early enough to plan out their outfits. In my experience, every morning I spend at least twenty minutes or more on picking out clothes I would wear to school. It is because, I have such a variety of clothing that makes it hard to choose from what I want. Since girls have vast amounts of clothing than guys, it makes it harder to choose outfits in the morning, therefore time has collapsed when it could have been used to eat breakfast or get onto the bus for school. In Long Beach Unified School District, located in Long Beach California, have seen improvement in school attendance. The district has school uniforms mandatory for the children who attend the schools in the Long Beach district. The elementary schools in the district, have exceeded successful attendance. The percentage of improved attendance has increased up to 94.8 percent since 1994, and as years has passed by until now, the uniforms has been almost fulfilled almost perfect attendance. It didn’t start out with the whole district acquiring school uniforms. It all started from one elementary school using the apparel. When the school started gaining great attendance, other schools in the same district thought it would reach great potential for their school. As you can see, when your outfits are planned each day without having to think about it, you can save time each morning. It will take as little as five minutes to put on the unif orm, thus preventing tardies and giving improved attendance. Second of all, by involving school uniforms into the system, it can help prevent drama, harassment, and verbal abuse, and sexual offense among the student body. In the Long Beach district, it was proven that assault in grades, kindergarten through eighth grades was dropped down eighty-five percent. Fighting has also been be dropped by thirty-eight percent. Sex offenses has declined by ninety-six percent. All the reduction to improved behavior of students, come from the school uniforms. When people have the right to choose their own clothing, they show how they want to express themselves. The individuality of students differentiate between each student, and not everyone will like everybody else’s clothing. Other students will often pick on each other, especially the younger group of children, will humor themselves because of other children’s appearances. Not everybody has the kindness and altruistic inside them, which can cause them to do unsympathetic actions that can h urt one another. Verbal abuse can cause hurt feelings, when it has to do with their own originality. A student’s expression through their clothes can help build confidence in themselves until someone turns them down because they do not like the clothing. Some clothing to others, make people vulnerable to harass students by bullying as well. By the clothing they wear, it can also show their personality. Sexual offenses have also been reduced because school uniforms can make people less attractive. With the proper clothing, such as tucked in shirts, to slacks and khakis, there will be less exposed skin. Males tend to often get attracted and urge to harass females that have that kind of appearance. With the help of school uniforms, everybody will look the same, so it would be harder to tease or abuse other children in school. Another positive aspect of school uniforms, less criminal activities take place. Stolen items, especially clothing, are caused by the jealousy of others. Not everybody can get what they desire in clothing because of the expenses. When people do not have the diligence to go out and purchase their own belongings, stolen items will occur. Many people will own some of the fanciest apparel that can catch many eyes, and a majority of that group probably cannot afford it. Clothes can be easily taken from lockers, and students know how to hack into lockers of students, especially during gym class. When students have a gym class, they are required to change out of their casual clothing, into gym clothes that are required for activities that take place during gym such as running, sports, and more that can cause students to sweat large amounts, and that would be very uncomfortable to do with jeans and other hard-to-move-in clothing. It is much easier to rob clothing during gym periods because t he locker rooms are not guarded or watched by anybody most of the time.When people know the fact that the locker rooms are unattended, that gives kids great opportunities to snatch whatever they can get. Another decline in criminal activities, are gangs. The clothing of how people express how they are and how their personality can show through their clothing. With the violent looking apparel, it can really contribute to one’s action. It is most likely, that with the people without the disciplined clothing, do not have a strong bond with the family that could really make a difference to them. With the lack of family orientation, kids will follow under the influence that others will do as well as clothing. With the ability of actions of what gangs can do, it can create a bad atmosphere in the school with vandalism and theft as well. School property could be damaged and abused by gangs. Once uniforms becomes a policy into the school system, parents would get involved with their children because of the purchasing of the uniforms. The reduction of all these incidents has reduced sixty-nine percent. It could help parents connect with their children by getting them involved with their education. Once parents can see the difference when school uniforms are being used in the school, they could show more appreciation for the kids, by having their kids go to school above the influence. Criminal activity can decline with school uniforms, maybe not at its full potential, but with the help of the school clothing it can make a difference by disciplining children to produce a better community in the school. Furthermore, school uniforms can present improvement in students academically. With the distractions of what clothing can do, it can disrupt student’s education. The distraction of everybody’s individuality, everybody will have different expression of clothing, which can take mind off of classwork and homework. This can be a big deal for females. Society has made an impact of the minds that dressing nice to school can make you look favored and desired to attract others for attention. Females may take up their studying time to go shopping that can take hours looking for the clothes that can make them look attractive. This can happen several times in a week or month, and most of that time could have been made up with studying to prepare for tests that makes up a majority of a grade in a class. Females may even take the time to make others jealous or to attract a certain someone they would want to amuse. Even on the other side, males could be distracted as well. Males can be distracted by the females with their overexposed outfits. When females show too much skin, males will have the urge to take a glance or check. This can often have males focus on girls rather than their education. In a survey, teachers have believed that kids are pressured on other students as well to getting name brand clothing so they could be accepted. Ninety percent of the teacher population in Long Beach district has believed so. This is very common for kids in schools, and the distractions should be eliminated. Incorporating assigned school apparel into the school, females can spend less time shopping and browsing for clothes that they would want to wear everyday at school. To add on to the productive reasonings, school uniforms can also improve student’s behavior. From what was stated above, all of that contributes to all individuals at schools to upgrade their manners and actions. Their behavior in school has gotten students to focus more in their education. Many factors can supply for the positive attitude that people can have with school uniforms. Without the violence, distractions, harassment, and other types of influences that are negative. Teachers believe that it it can help students become more mature by ninety-five percent. By raising the maturity level, it can bring less problems to the school making it run smoothly. Having a positive attitude in school can also reduce the trouble that students get into. For example, all the fights, vandalizing, or any other actions students can make can lead them a path to suspensions. Suspensions are caused by the negative attitudes students tend to have. Suspension rates have been dropped by ninety percent. The actions they do to create a problem to get suspended can really depend on how you think and how positive it can be. A positive behavior in school can save trouble, and school uniforms can really contribute to this conclusion. On the other hand, school uniforms can be kind of a down turn as well. The major con to school uniforms, is that can hinder and stifle individual’s self expression and creativity they could show in their clothes. Although it can raise the best in students such as achieving better grades, creating less drama within the students, or even reducing the violence that take place during school. Students do not find school uniforms attractive and most likely, they will not find the uniforms attractive. School uniforms never seem to look attractive anyways. The main point is, that it can limit to showing their self identity and that is important to many of the students out there because this is also how people can find their friends. When people can see other people’s clothing, they can make general infer to see if they are compatible to be friends. Another reason being, when people can show their individuality, it can boost peoples’ happiness by a lot, and that can very much change a person’s mood. Most people can picture having to pick their own clothing as art because you can choose what clothing can go together to make a certain outfit unique that could fulfill your desire. Parents like how they can see that their kids can express themselves through clothing because it can help them understand how they feel from day to day. When people can express through their clothing you can tell how they are feeling. Most of the time, if kids dress nice all the time, they usually would have a high spirit with joy to going to school. Then if suddenly they dress the opposite sometimes, you can probably get a lot of things out of it. You can probably see that their mood affected how they chose their outfits. Seeing how everybody expresses themselves, can also show that they also have a little freedom in school since they are trapped all day from school. Student’s need some type of liberty while attending school to balance with the strict rules that a school can have. With this type of freedom by expressing yourself through clothing can have a big effect on how you act upon yourself in a positive way. Second thought to the negative side is that school uniforms can get pricey. The school, or someone in the community would have to design the uniforms and assign them to each student in the school. Everybody in the school do not own the same amount of money, so this can be trouble to some families out there. Some families out there would not have a problem paying for several uniforms to wear each day of the week. Each uniform can be expensive enough just for one uniform, but to multiply it by however many days there are in a week can add up to a pretty high number. Other families may not be able to afford it. This may create a problem to certain families without the money to be able to purchase the uniforms. The student’s parents may have to work extra, but other things may get in the way to prevent the opportunity to gain more money. With this problem, when a school does not have school uniforms, some families can save a lot of money by buying cheaper clothes for their childre n, and use their money on other important things like food, books, or anything else that may be important. Having uniforms in school, especially if they are adding it now and never did from the beginning, can cause a lot of money problems to some families out there. School uniforms can also cause a bad reputation for the school that they are attending. Not all students will often behave with the changes of clothes, so they will end up to trouble. Whether it being before school, during lunch, or after school when they are able to leave the campus, they have their uniforms on. Going out into the public with your uniform will let others know what school you attend. If students are out caught doing something repulsive or anything unacceptable, this can give the school a bad reputation. This will also cause the prevention of parents wanting to enroll their own kids into that school. When a school has a bad reputation due to their student’s behavior and actions, less people will want their children attending the school, and even students from that school will leave and attend another school with a good reputation to get a better education. School uniforms can very much make a difference. When a school has school uniforms, students must be at their all time best behavior when they are off campus. They must be able to represent their school in a positive way, so that the school can get credited for the excellent behavior, and draw in students who would be attending the school in the future. Although school uniforms may have negative features to a students life in school, they are able to change their actions to prevent the negative features. Eliminating a person’s individuality isn’t always true, because there are weekends when students do not attend school, and that is when they can compensate for their right to being able to express their individuality and creativity. The important thing is that students are preparing their futures that could benefit them. With the high grades, to studying, and with less distractions, students can go to school with a purpose. Less competition between others will create an environment in which all students can become a greater person. School uniforms can very much discipline students into having a better and positive attitude and that can contribute for a much better future they could achieve.