Believing and Doubting Game

Schools should require students to wear uniforms.

I believe that schools should require students to wear uniforms because of the many advantages it would have for not only the school, but the students and perhaps the parents as well. Requiring students to wear uniforms would make the school appear more "clean-cut", suburban, and "uniform."Also, if everyone were required to wear uniforms everyday then that would reduce the amount of dress code violations, which would be good for both the individual students' discipline records as well as the school's record. Another advantage would be that students would not get teased based on the clothes they choose to wear. For example, usually in public schools, where students are mostly free to wear whatever they want as long as it's within certain guidelines, some students would get picked on for wearing non name-brand clothes or dressing like a goth, nerd, punk, etc. Since everyone would be wearing the same thing, then students would not be teased as much. Lastly, another advantage would be that less-fortunate kids who do not have a lot of clothes to wear would not feel embarrassed of having to wear the same things over and over again because everyone else would be doing that too and nobody would really notice.

I think requiring every student to wear uniforms every day to school is asking too much from not only the students, but their parents or guardians as well. There are disadvantages that would come into play if such a requirement was set. First of all, students perform better when they are comfortable which is why it is stressed that students get a full night's sleep and a good breakfast in the morning before taking a standardized test. I am sure that some students would not feel as comfortable in uniforms and so they might perform a little less well not only on tests, but on their daily in-class assignments. Also, students should be free to express themselves in the way that they dress as long as they keep it within the school's dress code. I think that forcing them to wear uniforms would make it seem like they are all the same when really they are all diverse and they should be able to display that. Maybe uniforms is the school's way to make sure there is equality for all students, but equality can exist with diversity also. More importantly, requiring students to wear uniforms would force parents to come out of their pockets once again to purchase them, and since the student would have to wear it daily, parents would have to buy more than one set of the uniform. This may be a burden for them because not only do they have to come up with the money to provide the uniforms, but they might feel like money has been wasted since their child would never be able to wear to school the clothes they already purchased.

Although requiring students to wear uniforms might be advantageous to the school and its students, requiring uniforms might obscure the schools' diversity and deny the students their right of self expression in the way that they dress as well as cause financial burdens for their parents.