For Our Own Good?

Attending one of the few schools in Auckland that allow their seventh form students to wear mufti instead of a school uniform has meant that I have eagerly awaited the allowance of this momentous freedom since the beginning of third form.

For the first few weeks of this year, I absolutely relished the opportunity to openly display my individuality in the sea of anonymity created by the school uniform. It was such a relief to know that we would no longer be repressed by that archaic tradition. How could anything beneficial come from forcing students to dress identically? Why wouldn't the school want to encourage individuality and display of character rather than conformity?

Contrary to the belief of a great number of students, compulsory school uniforms have a number of important individual and social benefits.

If everybody dressed in the same clothing, we are each known for our selves rather than the way we are presented. Without a uniform, the girl who is a guitar maestro can easily become the girl who wears flares instead of skinnies. For the sake of the development of our character, a challenge in allowing it to permeate the cloak of anonymity that is a uniform is more strengthening than a constant opportunity to display it superficially through clothing.

The clothing that we wear is also a symbol of our personal affluence and abundance of belongings. In wearing our own clothes rather than a uniform identical to everybody else's, we essentially wear our economic status on our sleeve, whether it be bought from Glassons or Kate Sylvester. The copiousness of our wardrobes is also indicated by the frequency with which we wear our garments. Where a uniform looks the same every day no matter how many shirts or blouses we have, people notice the boy who wears the same pair of 'sneans' every day, and judge him for it.

As tedious and constricting as school uniforms seem, their social benefits are critical. Would you have given that smart girl in your English class the same time of day if she had been wearing her vomit-coloured scarf and fluorescent pink beanie? Would you have paid such rapt attention to that boy's speech if he was wearing his favourite polar fleece, cuffed track pants? We may answer these questions with an indignant "Of course I would! I'm not shallow!", but think about it. Personal appearance makes a massive difference in the way that people are perceived by their peers, whether we care to admit it or not.