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Are shirts and ties scruffy?

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anotheoldgit | 14:39 Wed 16th Sep 2009 | News
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213840/School-bans-pupils-wearing-shirts-ties--look-SCRUFFY.html

Having noticed the trend for today's school youngsters to wear the knots of their ties nearly to the waist, and their shirts sticking out their pants, it is little wonder that they say they look scruffy.

But the answer here is not to change their shirts and ties to the more leisurely polo shirt, but to instil some discipline back into the classroom.

What is wrong with the old way of students filing past the head at the beginning of the day? Anyone not adhering to the correct smart dress code, is punished by reporting to the head at the end of the day for the next week or so.

The message would soon sink in.
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erratum...."would not sit right"......on a polo necked shirt.
I agree with loftylottie - they can look just as neat when they are comfortably dressed, ours have a polo shirt with a crest and it looks very well. I don't like ties on kids at all. We also wore a tie in school (convent school) and I say let the dark ages go and concentrate on what's important
peri/lofty...I have just looked at the picture and have changed my mind. Yes the shirt does indeed look smart, until, they start Grammar School or get to the age of 13yrs and then I think it would be prudent to return to the blazer, tie and shirt.
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But dancairo, I was never treated to corporal punishment at school and I have all the same qualities as you, how can you put down your perfect character to having been hit a couple of times as a child? Society at the time of corporal punishment also had the workhouse, slavery and voting restricted to men, would you bring back those too just because you percieve that society was better at that time. I think you are viewing the past through rose tinted glasses to some extent, not that that is through any fault of your own, Socrates was probably doing the same when he said-
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
Sorry, just a quick revision to my answer, I don't have exactly the same qualities as dan as I have never smoked but am however, an awful singer
My youngest is 26 and during his time in senior school one of the masters used to stand at the end of the road the boys used to work from the school into the town bus stops etc and any of the pupils who had a shirt hanging out or a tie not tied properley would be sent back to school to wait unitl the master came back.

Very few ever returned more than once a term not because of physical punishment(it had been banned in schools by then) but the speech he gave either bored them to tears or they decided to take heed of the contents.

The headmaster a small man in stature of just over 5'3" ruled the school by his presence and the fact that he commanded respect.
my kids' school is strict on uniform. they threatened to send my daughter home for having an extra earring in, in her GCSE year.

evidently earrings are more important than her education.
I must say I think 'banning' shirts and ties is rather extreme if kids want to wear them, but I think the whole justification behind uniforms is ludicrous and outdated. It's based on this daft late C19 idea of school pride that really has no place in the modern world.

Think about it - school life is horrible. For most people growing up/puberty is a really nasty, vile, unpleasant stage of life. Not only is your body changing, but your also herded into an institution through no choice or say of your own and made to study subjects with scoring systems that are usually completely nonsensical ways to assess people, the majority of which you will have very little interest in. And that's before we take into account the ferocious bullying, peer pressure and other social unpleasantries that school life inevitably brings with it at some stage for most kids. How exactly does pestering them over what they're wearing improve the picture?

If that doesn't convince you, then think about the point of the school system. It's meant to prepare you for life - meaning the basics academically, but also social relations and interactions etc. I can't see how forcing pupils to wear uniforms that they have no particular reason to have any kind of attachment to in pursuit of some pathetically out-dated notion of unity or cohesion.
Kromo....which school are you describing?.......Borstal.

May be some people may recognize your description, but I certainly do not.

"It's based on this daft late C19 idea of school pride that really has no place in the modern world." Really? I presume that is a personal opinion and not based on any survey.

Your final paragraph is quite interesting.............the notion of "doing what you are told" is certainly not a part of the modern world, but is it for the better?
Kromovar, it sounds like you had a really miserable time at school, but would not having to wear a uniform have changed that? - I doubt it.
I wasn't the happiest schoolboy either, but I really liked my blazer and tie based uniform, and just don't get the objection to wearing one - I mean they're not impregnated with itching powder or anything, so what's the flipping problem? Looking scruffy isn't a new thing either - the fashion when I was at school (I'm talking the seventies here), was to try and get as big a knot as possible so that the actual tie bit was just an inch or so of material sticking out of this huge knot - very similar to what they do nowadays.

I think school uniforms are great, and the sweatshirt/polo shirt things are just as good as the traditional blazer/tie, so long as it's a uniform, that's ok.
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There are some very interesting views on this subject, one that seems the most popular is the rejection of the shirt & tie, which some have rejected for a more modern day casual look.

The question I now ask is, I wonder how many of the "shirt & tie rejecters" would not think think twice before going for a job interview or even a court appearance, without donning the full regalia/uniform i.e. suit complete with shirt & tie?
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1. Sqad - unfortunately, you're right, I've been a bit hypocritical about this. I've often criticised people for just taking their own experience into account and ignoring big-picture evidence. I got carried away and certainly did the first one (though I've not really done the second as there's been no such evidence presented to ignore in this thread). I still think my point has something to it, though. Sorry anyhow for my inconsistency.

2. ludwig - to answer your question, at the time I wasn't particularly bothered about uniforms. I was pretty smart and never really got into any trouble regarding my uniform. But I still fail to see how pestering and punishing children about how they're dressed does anything to contribute to their learning.

3. AOG - I don't think your analogy works. It's true that it's expected you dress formally for formal occasions (or jobs), but school is very different. For one thing, you're there 5 (sometimes 6) days a week for a number of years and you haven't really chosen to be at all (unlike, say, with an office job). For another, you're doing so throughout the formative years of your life - it's not anything like in the same position as some occasion or occupation that you need to dress up for. For another, I don't see that school has any real need to be particularly formal - within reason obviously, it can't be anarchy. They're meant to be where you learn and interact and are prepared with the basics for further life - I don't see why that needs to be done in a formal/factory-like atmosphere purely because we've always done it that way.
Krom - I disagree. I do think that pestering and punishing them about how they're dressed helps the learning process, in the same way that pestering and punishing them about behaviour, manners, attendance, bullying, language, smoking, drinking, fighting and every other aspect of their behaviour helps it.
It's not really torture is it?, it's just discipline, and as we all know whether we like to admit it or not, schools without discpline are invariably horrible places where bullies thrive and children suffer and fail.
I can't say that I find your views on children being given the cane very amusing dan, so no I didn't chuckle at all.
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