Surely there are more important things that hair colour ?

[Richard Barrett]

Uniforms also teach kids that they are part of a group

... It would indeed be very fine if uniforms taught children the values of community, mutual respect, empathy for one's fellow human beings etc. but they clearly don't, as we see from the posh boys presently running the country. Uniforms actually do the opposite: they separate one "group" from another. As I said before, this is appropriate for a few specialised professions but in general it's exactly what MrGG says: "slavish unquestioning adherence to arbitrary rules".

[P. G. Tipps]

I think that teaching kids some useful life skills would be good. How to drill a hole and use a rawlplug, how tax codes work, dressing appropriately for interviews, cooking sausages thoroughly etc etc. None would take long, and potentially save a lot of time and effort later in life.
Not sure how wearing a one size fits all uniform on a school occasions is really going to help though.

SELF discipline is an essential for survival I would say. Not the same as imposed discipline.

I agree with just about all of that. I've often thought I was taught useless things at school at the expense of more practical training for later life.

Obviously self-discipline is preferable but kids have to be taught that, it doesn't come naturally, hence the need for early teaching.

What they do after school in the adult world is their own affair but, until then, discipline should be imposed as part of the training for that world.

[Richard Barrett]

Plus, learning useful skills is different from indoctrination. Useful skills are what people need, indoctrination and meaningless "discipline" is what social hierarchies need. Training for what world? Why not training to imagine a better one?

[P. G. Tipps]

Plus, learning useful skills is different from indoctrination. Useful skills are what people need, indoctrination and meaningless "discipline" is what social hierarchies need. Training for what world? Why not training to imagine a better one?

Daydreaming about an imaginary world is all very well but we still find ourselves having to deal with the one that actually exists?

That's what I keep discovering, anyway ...

[Dave2002]

In the States many schools do not have uniforms. The effect on girls (at least) is quite strange, as they then seem mostly to choose to dress in the same way, and spend hours on the phone to each other (having just seen the others a few minutes earlier as they left the school gates) discussing what to wear tomorrow - so that they can then turn up with co-ordinating sets each day.

I don't know how that would translate in the UK.

My observation of boys in the UK is that they frequently adapt/modify the uniform - e.g shirt hanging out, loose tie, no tie, cap on back to front etc. Is that such a bad thing? At least that's how it was when I was at school.

Whether it's better to allow young people to rebel against such "norms" or not I'm not sure. Sometimes giving people things to rebel against which are perhaps trivial is not such a bad idea - more serious rebellion can get out of hand.

[MrGongGong]

Daydreaming about an imaginary world is all very well but we still find ourselves having to deal with the one that actually exists?
.

Where the most intelligent people don't dress up in 1950's costume to go to work ?

Obviously self-discipline is preferable but kids have to be taught that, it doesn't come naturally, hence the need for early teaching.

I didn't realise you were an expert in pedagogy ?

This, of course,is a pile of nonsense

What I suggest is that you find a teenager who plays the electric guitar and ASK them about how much the play, practice and noodle about. Self-discipline comes with enthusiasm and curiosity not with someone more powerful than you telling you what to do.

[Richard Barrett]

Daydreaming about an imaginary world is all very well but we still find ourselves having to deal with the one that actually exists?

That's what I keep discovering, anyway ...

Do you really think it's daydreaming that I'm talking about? One thing I'm talking about is to encourage young people to think more responsibly about the environment they live in, not "dealing with the one that actually exists" but being active in trying to improve it - given that the status quo isn't sustainable anyway. The education system is increasingly oriented towards turning young people into passive, rule-following automata (in uniforms), whereas the most valuable thing that can be passed on is actually the ability to question and imagine. And then they might not have to "keep discovering" that nothing can be changed.

[P. G. Tipps]

Where the most intelligent people don't dress up in 1950's costume to go to work ?

You certainly have a bit of a 'thing' about the '1950s', haven't you, Mr GongGong ... ?

I didn't realise you were an expert in pedagogy ?

Neither did I ... I had never even heard of the word before. Sounds a bit elitist and snobby to me and coming from a self-confessed anarchist too ... :-)

This,of course,is a pile of nonsense.

In that case I feel increasingly confident I must be right ...

What I suggest is that you find a teenager who plays the electric guitar and ASK them about how much the play, practice and noodle about. Self-discipline comes with enthusiasm and curiosity not with someone more powerful than you telling you what to do.

You can be as suggestive as you like, Mr GongGong!

As it happens I have a nephew who plays electric guitar but he's currently touring the States with his band. So I won't have to look far but will obviously need to await his return in order to seek his advice.

Somehow I think he won't be in the slightest interested in this discussion. He seems happy enough with his lot, though. Most things in his world he describes as 'cool'.

Funnily enough that word (at least its meaning here) is a throwback to the 1950s as well, but, of course, you will be far, far too young to remember any of that, Mr GongGong!

[MrGongGong]

As it happens I have a nephew who plays electric guitar but he's currently touring the States with his band. So I won't have to look far but will obviously need to await his return in order to seek his advice.

When you do, why not ask if the self discipline required to play a musical instrument comes from someone telling you to do it or from your own motivation.

[Serial_Apologist]

As I implied in

The uniforms issue is just a substitute for critiqueing school's inculcatory role in capitalist society, to which, rather as with examples of recycled style and nostalgia, uniformity stands in mixed metaphorical relationship.

I'm somewhat in 2 minds about compulsory school uniforms. Were the schools to provide them free (i.e. paid for by the taxpayer, ahinton) this would avoid the expense issue, and pupils would not be able to pick on "uncool" dress codes. The alternative, as of now, after all, is throwing them into the melting pot of fashion, which is all about appearance and anything BUT encouraging of individuality.

[P. G. Tipps]

When you do, why not ask if the self discipline required to play a musical instrument comes from someone telling you to do it or from your own motivation.

I think I'd acquire automatic self-discipline in order to practise something I loved doing and to receive regular royalty payments through the post as well!!

Real self-discipline involves doing things you don't particularly want to do and you might even think are silly at times, in a compromise pact with the rest of society.

If we don't do that it has to be enforced from 'above' so as to maintain some sort of order.

[Richard Barrett]

As I mentioned previously, in Germany school uniforms are basically unknown, and the same is true of much of Europe, as well as most of the USA. It seems to me to be largely a British obsession, leaving aside societies like Japan whose institutional pressure towards conformity is presumably not thought of as worth emulating. Children at primary school age really don't much care about fashion anyway. (Unless their parents are obsessed with it I suppose.) Mind you Germany is also less unequal than the UK.

[Richard Barrett]

so as to maintain some sort of order.

I don't really see what's so great about your idea of "order".

[P. G. Tipps]

I can well understand that ...

Presumably you would prefer a Marxist system of order?

[Serial_Apologist]

I think I'd acquire automatic self-discipline in order to practise something I loved doing and to receive regular royalty payments through the post as well!!

Real self-discipline involves doing things you don't particularly want to do and you might even think are silly at times, in a compromise pact with the rest of society.

If we don't do that it has to be enforced from 'above' so as to maintain some sort of order.

When there are so many genuinely important and urgent things needing disciplined knowledgeable people to be done, one can understand why intelligent young people rebel against pointlessness, unless by that stage one had already been brainwashed into blind submissive obedience.