The school uniform debate in Flagler Schools once again made the Daytona Beach News-Journal today, complete with pro-con on uniforms: Town Hall Meeting on Uniforms Slated
The "Today" show ran a piece this morning on the latest research on "lookism" among young people. Children as young as 6 years old have been shown to make character judgments based on a person's physical appearance. Research also says that even teachers are guilty of basing judgments of students on how that child looks. Good looking children were assumed to be more intelligent and more personable than less attractive students, even when the teachers were given identical statistics other than photographs to evaluate them by!
Anyone who has ever been to a restaurant or store where a uniform is required to be worn by the staff knows that uniforms just simply look better on some people than on others. Uniforms don't create equality. They actually enforce the social standard of who looks good, since certain people just simply look good in anything. Everyone else, who are encouraged by fashion stylists to "dress to flatter your bodies" are stuck in things that not only don't flatter them but can actually be actively unflattering. The self-esteem blow to a person of being stuck in an unflattering look instead of being able to dress to their best potential can be harsh.
Educating our kids is supposed to be about teaching them self-worth and about teaching them to fulfill their potential. So why then should we limit their potential and tell them they can only look good during school hours if they were born looking a certain way?
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