School uniforms are ‘absolutely appalling’

RE: School uniforms

When I was an elementary student, I was sent to a plethora of different schools where uniforms were mandatory. I think that the idea of school uniforms is absolutely appalling. Demanding parents to pay a ridiculous amount of money for four or five different outfits that their children don’t even want to wear is nonsense. The only thing that uniforms are good for is their ability to meld a diverse group of individuals into a sea of indistinguishable shirts.

Creative expression is destroyed when a child puts on a uniform. I remember when all I wanted to do was wear what my parents got for me, but I couldn’t. Instead of a bright pink sweater that someone got for their ninth birthday, they must wear a dull and undesirable shirt that all of their friends are wearing.

There is always the argument that diverse clothing brings bullying, but what uniforms really do is make the bullies attack the personal aspects of a child. At schools with no uniforms, a bully might say that a student’s pants look ugly; with uniforms, the bully doesn’t have pants to make fun of, so it is the child who becomes “ugly” instead of the pants.

Without uniforms, students’ learning environment is a place of colour and creativity, a place of beauty where self-expression runs free. Gabriel McIlquham, Mount Hope