http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/fashion/08cross.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
I saw this in the NY Times. And I started to wonder why principals and teachers don't use one key phrase to diffuse all of this dress code nonsense: "Keep your eyes on your own paper."
Here's what I mean - if each student is concentrating on their own education and personal development, it doesn't matter how any other student is dressed. Just like the only way you know that Billy is cheating on a test is if your eyes strayed from your own test, the only way that you even notice somebody else's business is if you aren't paying attention to your own.
It works for are outside the gender norm. It works for kids who are outside the financial norm (rich or poor). It works for the weird kid, the short kid, the fat kid, the religious kid, the ethnic kid. And if you have enough time to comment on anything about another student, perhaps we need to look at elevating the amount of schoolwork you are involved in, because you obviously have too much time on your hands.
Acting as if being different will affect classroom discipline just feeds into the worst of teenage peer pressure. Over-reacting just affirms their over-inflated sense of self-importance. If body parts are covered, nothing makes noise or smells ungodly and the student is able to breathe and move adequately, there's nothing they can wear that a dose of MYOB won't cure. And in the case of gender bending, if the kid is only doing it to get attention, you know what the quickest way to get him to stop is? That's right. Ignore him.
If I was a principal, unless Jimmy has a gun or a drug stash, I don't want to hear about it from you. You keep your eyes on your paper, and Jimmy's gone keep his eyes on his paper. Whether he's wearing nail polish, speaking Japanese or praying. It's none of your business. You don't have to talk to each other. You don't have to look at each other. You do your thing. He'll do his. School is for academics. Period.
In fact the entire world would be a nicer place if more people kept their eyes on their own papers.
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LOL AS I'm reading this - I was playing "Fashion is Danger" by Flight of the Conchords - Talk about synchronicity!
Listen to it free at: http://www.rhapsody.com/flight-of-the-conchords
hilarious!
"I'm the edge, I'm the chic, I'm the taste.."
And yes, everything is a disruption - how about one kid going thru puberty much earlier or later than the norm - that is BIG disturbance but you can't regulate that - let it go and trying to control what teens wear - a losing battle and one no one is going o be happy about
This is my favorite quote, "...high school should not be a public stage to work out private identity issues. School, they say, is a rigorous academic and social training ground for the world of adults and employment."
Did they ever go to HS? In between "rigorous acadmeics" kids are trying to figure out who they are all the time.
I think MYOB works for HS kids and adults too.
Probably the most valuable lesson any kid could learn in high school is how to ignore other people's drama. I can think of any number of adult workplaces that I've been in that would have benefited from more looking at one's own paper. Acceptance is wonderful. But there's a lot to be said for just shutting the Ef up.
I just noticed I spelled "academic" wrong in my previous post. Apparently, my studies weren't very rigorous. Maybe I was too busy trying to figure out my identity instead. :)LOL
I figure questioning your identity is a lot like school prayer: as long as there are pop quizzes and hormones in high school, they're both going to happen whether the school sanctions them or not. And neither one is a teacher, a principal or another students concern.
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