I been employed an additional full-time job earlier this Winter and Spring with a local Middle School in the Midwest – the ‘Heartland of America’. Indiana… Smack dab inside the upper portion of the ‘Bible-belt’. Having worked inside the process of educating our youth for upwards of twenty-five years, there are a number of concerns that I have about our current system of public education. My biggest concern, however, deals with the issue of the items quite a few schools allow our youngsters to use in the classroom. (Not to mention what appears to be a complete lack of ‘common-sense’ parenting in relation to the problem of clothing!)
This school comes with a dress code for his or her teachers, para-professionals and students. But the dress code for the students seldom is apparently reinforced. Let me clarify this. While this school is in a conservative town, it provides a rather large Hispanic population. The school does a considerable job of regulating and enforcing clothing that is considered ‘gang-related’. This helps to stem the tide from a potential violence that exists between cultures. Beyond this, students dress code is simply not enforced. Many in the males ‘sag’. That is, they wear their pants on or below their buttocks. And many with the females wear their pants similarly. They also wear tops that display excessive cleavage – way a lot of cleavage for young males with hormones coursing through their young bodies to concentrate on adding negative integers!
I have told numerous students to “pull up their pants” as their ‘butt-crack’ is showing. I mean, really! Why must this type of an issue be allowed to continue? Many from the females should be sent home to wear an even more appropriate shirt or blouse. There is no part of telling these to ‘cover-up’ since there is just not enough material for the job. At the risk of sounding too conservative or too nave, I do not believe our schools must be a place where this kind of casual and provocative dress ought to be allowed. I do not believe that this type of attire are at all conducive on the educational process.
Make them wear uniforms!
How does a person give full attention to ‘learning’ when his / her mind is flooded with images from the partially nude, sexually explicit parts of the body from the women in your life? If I were attending this middle school, (and there are numerous more schools available just like this), ‘learning’ the Pythagorean theorem or the information ‘Sherman’s March on the Sea’ couldn’t survive towards the top of my list! My concentration could be elsewhere.
Despite having less School Board and administrative intervention in regards to the ‘dress code’, I am at the loss to describe having less parental intervention which allows children to wear so provocatively. Where include the parents? Are they so consumed in their own personal lives which they cannot spot the clothing habits of the child? Are they so enamored and inundated with the present-day media-fare they think this kind of dress is acceptable?
Just because they dress this way in TV as well as the movies and popular music videos won’t ensure it is acceptable for our schools! Are our schools a place of learning or an area that promotes scantily clad boys and girls promoting the culture hyped from the media? Seriously, what learning can take place inside mind of an adolescent that is certainly assigned ‘boob shots’ the whole day?
Parents, Where Are You???
Fathers, where are you currently? Why do you think you’re providing you thirteen-year-old child to promote her or his body in doing this?
Mothers, where are you currently? Why are you allowing you thirteen-year-old child in promoting her or his body in this way?
Parents! Where have you been? Have you so totally abdicated your role you don’t care anymore? Are you so afraid of standing up for decency and avoiding just a little fight along with your child that you just allow him or her in promoting their sexuality in this manner? Are you so spineless which you can’t impose limits and regulations on your own child’s habits of dress?
Shame, shame, shame… On parents for allowing their children to use what you want and to display what you want! On the faculties for not enforcing proper dress codes! And on the media to take this active role in fostering it that enables our kids undertake a ‘peep-show’ inside the confines individuals educational system. (Advertisers share just as much, or even more, responsibility on this present-day educational melt-down).
School uniforms that require that shirts be tucked-in, belts worn properly, and shirts/blouses that extend for the neckline will be a want to their own educational values.
Parents which are willing to enforce this type of simple remedy because this to cope with the educational woes because of too little proper standards of dress would find the job of parenting much more enjoyable. Sure, there could be some arguments from the kids… But who’s the parent? Who is responsible for their child while he/she is otherwise engaged in public places? I mean, why send your kids university otherwise to have instruction? Not the education of the body parts seem like, nevertheless the education of History and Math and Science that can propel the crooks to a profession that is certainly rewarding. There are enough the younger generation on the market that ‘drop-out’ because school is simply too hard or too constraining. Might this be an indictment of our own standards of ‘loose dress codes’ inside home as well as inside the schools? Perhaps these kids found it just too difficult to focus on anything aside from boobs because they couldn’t start to see the bigger picture.
Please, parents, do your career! Enforce an authentic dress code that allows schools to meet their function. The schools are not to blame for what your child wears. You are!
Set a better standard! Live an increased standard! Expect an increased standard from your child. You will find that your kids will rise to your expectations if you live by your expectations!
