Keep Striping Away Their Identity with School Uniforms and Segregation Please

Imagine a world where we all look the same.  Guys wear the same khaki colored slacks with a blue polo.  Girls outfitted in the a khaki jean skirts that falls above the ankles and should be called a dress, but because dresses are meant for walking all these little sweethearts are thrilled to show the frill of lace around the top of their bleached white socks.  No, I am talking about more than dress code. 

I am also talking about segregation.  Boys and girls split up as our father’s and mother’s fore-people were in school back in the day.  What is this world?  This world is the one ripping away our children’s identity and critical developmental skills, but when it comes to a higher education is it worth it. 

We live in a dynamic world of change and opposition.  It is full of terrorism, drugs, war, gangs, teenage sex, murder, sexism, child abuse and neglect, and tons of individuality that screams hallelujah to the seven hells for a way to make us somehow different from every other human being we share air. 

No, I am in no way supportive of any criminal activity, if you misread how I constructed my sentence above.  I am in no way un-supportive of finding ways to help our youth exercise their brain, though I feel that many youth today are way smarter than they were ten, fifteen, fifty years ago. 

Of course, contribute this to science’s last 200-year sprint to replace God with the microorganism and prove that we are not alone in the ever-enlarging cosmos.  Add in the amazing spider-Web with massive highways full of information that will allow you to visit Uranus without ever needing to leave your $100 office chair, hand-held computers that ring the Moody Blues, and assigned algebra to a third grader’s math curriculum equals some pretty smart youth. 

There are still those kids, you know the ones who have a hard time paying attention in class and work at a slower pace.  The ones who are really just lazy, don’t get their math or language homework, or haven’t matured fast enough to be doing more homework on a weeknight than their parents 400 level college instructor assigns them.  That’s ok though, science has been good to teachers.  It invented ADHD, so some BS law could force kids to go to some doctor with a letter of assessment by a teacher. 

The letter reads in a secret coded language, “Please drug kid.  He wants to do his own thing.”  The doctor on the spot writes out a prescription for Adderal without any evaluation.  We will blame this same youth for being a drug addict in twenty years and give him the reputation that we always knew he turn out like this.  Nevertheless, whose fault is really? 

I was one of those kids back in the day before the meds and tougher laws requiring parents to conform came about.  I was slow, have never really showed enthusiasm in much, and usually figured things out before the other kids.  Don’t kid yourself, I am in school and on my way to becoming an instructor of the English language.  The subject of English and writing in school were the only two subjects that held my attention.  Sure I loved history, liked most things in science class (unless it tried to disprove that dragons, witches, monsters, gods, and the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real), but have never understood math (yes, I get 2+2=4 and 861,856+ X =138,332,984,033, but go into some Calculus or Trigonometry and I just might toss you across the room).   However, when my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Shepherd, told me that, “the writer had the powers of God;” I have played God since.

School is a place to learn.  Moreover, learning should be not only our children’s top priority, but ours as well.  The kids are suffering from our mistakes.  We look at statistics and listen to news broadcast and see Columbines, gangs, and then see shows like the Secret Life of Teens, or whatever, and fret in the crosshairs of cultural change inside moral dilemma. 

 The truth is the statistics we usually read are skewed in making you think a certain way.  Columbine type incidents are on the rise of because of continuing over population, but school violence is nothing new.  Violence and gangs have been around since the dawn of time and the show Secret Life of the American Teenager is a drama, we are drama!

Sure, we dress the kids all the same and take away their identity, but what good is it doing us?  Fixing the dramatic problems we all worry about in the school systems must start at home.  When you see a guy in a Marilyn Manson tee and all dark cloths walking down the street don’t look at your son and say who is that freak.  That freak is a person with likes and dislikes, and probably a smart kid. 

However, don’t blame him when he blows your son’s head off because your son has for years dogged him with your biased views and stereotyped behavior. 

The same with a girl whom shows a little skin.  It does not make her a whore.  Your daughter can easily be that whore in the khaki skirt that looks like everyone else.  Of course, I am talking high school.  Yet I have seen parents to this crazy stuff.  Clothes don’t make the person.

Separate the kids you say, (at least a school in Buncombe County, NC is doing so).  Then, are we not devaluing the essence of equality then?  Of an educational experience that exceeds those anything a teacher can teach?

The communication between the two sexes is crucial at such an early age.  Only experience can teach a boy and girl to communicate and learn that they are equals.  Remember that less than ninety years ago women were not considered the equal of man in the United States.  What if this reverses in the future, and this time it is man whom loses his rights?

We must teach our children to be different.  To have their own identity, in personality and dress, as we all should have our own personal identity.   Making a better world starts with better choices of judgment of character.  Not filling the seats with techno-zombies loaded up on Adderal.  Not every boy is good at playing sports, nor is every girl made to be sweet and innocent.  We are all-different inside and show it on the exterior.  Teach our children to love one another, be a sponge, and to do their best.  What more can we really ask for?