School Violance Essay, Research Paper
In our education system the debate to enforce uniforms is an immense issue due to many recent school related violence. Two examples of violent acts that occurred at school are the shootings at a school in Atlanta, Georgia and at Columbine High School in Colorado. Many bomb threats and threats to shoot students and teachers have occurred due to these violent shootings. Uniforms negatively affect the educational system because dress codes can not control violence. The way a person acts or thinks is not parallel to the way one dresses. A possible solution to this problem is located inside the students homes. Students family life influences the actions of the students.
Throughout my high school years the uniform issue came up on a regular basis. Being on student council I was faced with dealing both sides of the issue. The majority of the students disagreed with uniforms while basically the entire faculty and administration favored some sort of a strict dress code. The student council, persuaded by the school board, agreed that shorts should not be any more than a credit card length above the knees or students shall not be to wear any clothes containing any sort of obscenities or profanity. We felt that a dress code was necessary, but enforcing a uniform code was preposterous.
However, many schools felt that enforcing uniforms would be beneficial. Those schools who favor the side of enforcing uniforms believes that wearing uniforms means fewer school related problems. They anticipate that it will push gangs off-campus. They sense that if students can not wear their gang colors to school then they will be unable to show their involvement in their gang while at school. My group member Justin Haley, who attended a private school in which he was forced to wear a uniform, said, Uniforms would definitely cut down on many gang related problems on campus. He means that gangs would be unable to recognize one another. On the other hand, I believe that just clothing can not control gangs on campus. Gangs will over-lap the standards of uniforms or will find new items to replace the old. When I asked another on of my group members, John Hatfield a student who attended a high school without a dress code, about the situation he said, What is going to stop a gang from wearing a certain bracelet or something along those lines. Would you band bracelets too? Uniforms would indeed not help violence in school and many campuses would still experience gang activity.
Uniform supporters feel that uniforms would allow the economically lower class students to feel better about themselves due to the fact that everyone would appear the same. They believe that this would prevent segregation of students by economic status, which would lead to less violence on campus. I believe that students would still be segregated by economic status and thus would not show a decrease in violence. John Hatfield states, Uniforms would only disguise the student s economic status and would not be a rational answer to cut down on violence. I feel that John s quote is precis. The favoring side of a strict dress code is implying that only the economically lower class students are committing all of violent acts at school. Economic status does not determine the way a students act.
I feel that the use of uniforms will strip identity and stifle creativity that would only lead to an increase in on-campus violence. The penal system uses uniforms to brand those persons who are incarcerated. Most of the students that attend school have not been incarcerated so why already brand them. Also, the military uses uniforms to separate and remove the individualism inside of the soldier. These individuals choose to join the military so they should be forced to dress a certain way to show their identity. In both cases, individual identity is stripped away and the subject is forced to conform to the same outward appearance as every other subject. Another problem that will surface due to the implementation of school uniforms is the suppression of the individual’s creativity and expression. Many students’ express who they are through the way they dress. If a teenager wants to show the rest of the world that he loves Jesus, then he or she might wear a T-shirt that states a positive view on the subject. Similarly, a student might want to wear green colored clothing to show his or her support for St. Patrick’s day. School uniforms would end both of those examples listed within this paragraph and many more. Students should have the right to express themselves as an individual. Students will rebel and will be uncooperative in class causing more violence.
Finding a solution to violence would benefit schools tremendously. A solution to the problem would cut down on violence on school premises. It would make schools a safer place to attend, which would able students to learn at a greater capacity. One possible location to the solution would be found in students family and home life. They way that they were raised. This could very possibly be where the problem is located.
Students family life should be the point of emphasis in finding a solution to the problem. Many of these juvenile criminals have been neglected, as they grew up in a single-parent family. This neglection and lack of influence is a large reason why students commit violent acts. Improper parental care has been linked to delinquency such as mothers who drink alcohol or take drugs during pregnancy cause their babies to grow up with learning disorders, a problem which leads them to be juvenile criminals. The most common risk factor is the demise of the family life and the increase in family violence.
Violence in schools has been a vast issue for many years. One can see that the root of the problem is not the way students dress. Uniforms in school would not reflect the amount of violence in schools. Enforcing uniforms will only take away from the students right to express themselves as an individual causing more problems. Rather, we need to look for a deeper possible motive to the problem. Family life is a more rational locale to the problem. If a prudent solution to the proposed problem in discovered it would benefit the educational system very immensely. It would make all schools around the world a safer and a more desirable place to learn.