DO SCHOOL UNIFORMS STIFLE OUR IDENTITY?

    Finding your own identity is an important right of passage for any and every teenager. Part of our identity is how we dress and how we look. When a school requires students to wear a specific uniform they are taking away part of an individuals identity. 

    There are already so many rules and regulations in today's school system. Sometimes teenagers feel like robots navigating through a set system where they are unable to share their voice. When we are allowed to wear what we want to wear it is a way for us to express ourselves while still being respectful to the learning environment the teachers and administration have set up.  

The awesome thing about school is that you get to interact with a variety of different people from different backgrounds and cultures. If students are required to wear a school uniform it stifles their creativity and authenticity between each other. 

There is an argument to made that school uniforms can "level the playing field" and possibly bring kids together by creating an illusion of equality. However, especially at a high school level, this is an unrealistic expectation of what the world is like outside of school grounds. Teenagers and young adolescents should be getting prepared for what life is like beyond high school and part of that is learning about how diversity can make our communities stronger and how embracing differences is better than acting like differences don't exist.

I've posted two different photos of teenagers on this blogpost and I feel strongly in the first picture that all the reader sees are the uniforms. In the second picture I believe that the reader is able to see the actual people for who they are. As a teenager I want to be seen. 

Let me know what you think about how young people express their identity today. Is their individual style and clothing that important? Do you uniforms really benefit our schools?

Sources:

https://www.youthrights.org/issues/student-rights/dress-codes-and-uniforms 

https://www.usforacle.com/2010/10/07/school-uniforms-dangerously-limitstudents-individualism/