The Sepim and the Massik may seem as remote from English school children and their dress as Czechoslovakia was from Chamberlain. But 'only connect' and worlds of understanding open.
Our sense of self, expressd through our bodies - our skin, our eyes, hair, and their styling, adornment and clothing are an exploding blossom of communicative exchange with others and assertion of identity with others and against others. And we take our characteristics from the environment's characteristics that are predominant and reflective of our sense of identity. Are we focused outwards on exchange and external linking or inwards on identification and defence? Are we smooth or hairy? Silken-skinned and silkily dressed, or scarred and armoured?
So when schools face the principle, almost only, means of self expression commanded by their young purpose, conflict is de rigueur. Some people never get over the hairiness of defined uniforms right down to colour of gym knickers - the ties, shirts, jerseys, flannels, pleated worsted skirts, specified weights of stocking, belts, indoor and outdoor shoes, with bars, with laces, length of sock, hats velour and panama, overcoats, gaberdines, aertex, divided skirts, gloves black in winter white in summer. These are the essentials of exclusivity and no exchange.
The anguish of those who belong with the Massim, locked into the world of the Sepik, is expressed in tiny trangressions of loosened ties, rolled-up skirt waists, folded hats, tights not lisle, while their happier age cohorts wear what they choose, or 'preferred colours in appropriate styles for the active life of school'. Yet many of them try to formalise the slovenly silkiness of their fellow students, and close the gates against the intruder, the foreigner.
All of this is reinforced by parental generations reliving their own identification struggles and issuing final instructions on what can and cannot be worn. The tyranny of brand and cheap fashion is just as cruelly enforced as black lace-ups and no nonsense.
How we present ourselves to the world is our first and our most important statement. Perhaps those who preach 'school uniform' and those who cry 'no' could reach an Italian compromise. Wear what you like but cover the lot with an overall - black for boys, dark blue for girls. Oh... all right, any colour but standard cut.
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9 comments:
Can't seem to Google up the right pages. Who are the Sepim and Massik?
Schools uniforms ...snicker snicker ...non its no good I was going to say soemthing about development of character but quite diffrent images are flooding my fetid imagination so thick and fast that I am unable to take the subject seriously at all.
Yes HG cough cough .... gells should be suitably attired in ...nope cannot do it
I thought the whole idea of school uniforms was to eliminate from the school any jealousy of fellow pupils. Everybody dressed the same means no blatant or obvious differentiation between rich and poor parents. Seems like a good idea to me and means no peer pressure on poorer parents to fork out for eg those £150 *branded* trainers when the same thing is available for under £30 and do exactly the same job.
Mewmania: Behave yourself or the upper sixth from St Trin's will be round with their itching powder and hockey sticks...
School uniform is important.
It's no coincidence that smart looking kids from smart looking schools do well.
Our local comps have taken to emblazoned sweat shirts which, I suppose, does achieve a level of uniformity though not necessarily the smartest.
Try Kula and exchange and beauty magic, S.
'...quite diffrent images are flooding my fetid imagination so thick and fast that I am unable to take the subject seriously at all.'
What else is beauy magic there to do but bamboozle the senses, N? You would be the first to react to it from smallest nuance to grossest offer.
Nomad's only pretending to think school uniforms are there as social equalisers.
It's what it's important for, E-K, that I was thinking about. And N has blown the lid off as usual.
Only pretending??
Not so, HG. When I grew up during the 1940s/50s, most schools had a uniform which pupils had to wear (at least within sight of the school gates!). There was a great deal of poverty, rationing and austerity in those days.
Having squeezed through the 11+ I went to a grammar school where all us oiks dressed alike. In those days a grammar school education matched that of most private schools so there was much less need for private education for able kids. There was no obvious way then to be able to tell who was the son of the milkman, bus driver or plumber and who was the son of a senior barrister or other well do to parents; or who lived on the council estate or in one of the big houses on the hill. Certainly, and unlike today, nobody came to school in daddy's car (if indeed he had one) - we all used either the bus, our bike, or our feet. I am not sure social equalising fits the bill, but in our eyes we were all equally valuable as a classroom group with no green eyed monsters playing havoc with our studies or relationships. We worked, fought, played and competed together for the better part of 6 years with no thought of each other's background or family circumstances. The only slight indication of any differences emerged later when it was revealed that one or two members of the class had become competent musicians - and only richer parents could afford music lessons for their sprogs at that time.
I am happy to say that many of my classmates are still in touch with each other some 50 years later.
I stick by my assertion that uniforms were there for a good reasons.
It's what are the good reasons, Nomad. Adornment is as complex an exchange as language itself, and possibly governed by the same systems. No-one would deny that social rank is in part expressed by dress. There's a lot more going on as well (cf Newmania), particularly when those being uniformed (and there is a Laingian ambivalence of meaning in 'being uniformed', too) enjoy what Italians call 'the beauty of the age'.All the young are beautiful (which is why what they are wearing and the struggle over conformity and diversity and the control of its expression is central to communication.)
So it seemed worth mentioning that 'the presentation of self in everyday life' is not fully analysed by the 'school uniform is to hide rank' justifications so often put forward as 'just common sense' (common sense being, of course, a whole new can of worms).
When I grow up I will write a post on 'common sense'. If my elders and betters had not written all that might be said on beauty, I'd try to write on that too.
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