Published: June 30, 2009 09:46 pm      

LILLY MILLER: Dressing down standardized dress

Are school uniforms good, or evil?

The decision to require students to comply with a standardized dress code has affected students and parents in the Athens Independent School District. Some people feel it is one of the best things that could have happened. Others, like me, disagree.

By taking away our choices, does that take away our individuality? Yes, some would say, but do our clothes make us who we are, or does our innate character we’ve been developing since birth define us? I believe the discussion to go to uniforms was brought on primarily because kids spent more time worrying about clothes than they did worrying about school.

Does it really help kids focus on school? My answer is “no.” There will always be kids who come to learn and those who come because their truancy officer said they had to. I believe if someone truly doesn’t wish to learn, no amount of force feeding will do any good. So if you take away students’ right to express themselves (within reason) what truly has been accomplished?

I think I can honestly say nothing.

If you think about it, you spend more time looking for the school-approved clothing. Parents probably lose a lot more money than they did in the “good old days” when uniforms were just a distant nightmare and not reality (unless your kid was a shop-a-holic or a label queen).

Most parents agree that standardized dress was one of the best things that could have happened, but they’re parents and if they agreed with us kids all the time they wouldn’t be parents (take that how you want it). Do you want to take away your child’s ability to express themselves, because that’s what has happened and is still happening.

I can pretty much guarantee if you were to go around and ask kids who go to high school, middle school and any other school if they liked the dress code, between 80 and 90 percent would be an emphatic NO!

So why not make a slight compromise? Why can’t we just wear jeans and a polo shirt? There are millions of possibilities if we just try to think of something. I’d like to see the school administration seriously consider asking the student body for its ideas and opinions. I promise there won’t be a shortage of opinions (whether the parents and school board agree is up to them).

Parents, I ask that you consider the fact that uniforms don’t do anything beneficial. Okay, sure, your kid looks so “cute” and “grown up.”

Please! We’re just kids. It’s our job to be a little bit different than what you think a model kid should look like.

For now, I suppose, we must agree to disagree.

Lilly Miller, 15, is an intern with the Athens Review.