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Another school, this time in Wales, has a shorts ban so the boys are choosing skirts:
Swansea schoolboys keep cool in skirts after shorts ban
Boys at Gowerton Comprehensive School in Swansea resort to wearing skirts to school in order to deal with the heat following a ban on shorts.
Mothers of the students at Gowerton Comprehensive School said the boys had not been allowed to wear gym shorts as an alternative and they were also not permitted to roll up their trousers to cool down.
The boys defended their decision to wear skirts saying: "It's cooled us down quite alot, if we wore trousers in class it would affect us, getting sweaty and losing concentration because of the heat".
I hope that they will, as they get comfortable with their skirts, become able to throw off the shackles of conformity and become skirted men in, maybe, a localised and growing critical mass. The Swedish train drivers are a start, and now these children are also making a protest. The fact that such a public show is made, without shame or ridicule, shows how far we have come already. There is a slow movement for change which is gathering pace and, for the negative ones in the world who want the world to stay conformist, remember the phrase from the 60s song "--get out of the new one (world) if you don't understand, for the times they are a changing"
It will not always be summer: build barns---Hesiod
I am impressed that their mothers are supporting them. The newspapers says there several boys in skirts. The TV clip shows 2. I hope they don't get picked on and their fellow students support them. I just wish I had done the same openly when I was at school but it was a different world then. There is a slim chance that the present above average temperatures may persuade more men/boys to leave their trousers behind and wear skirts out in the sun.
It is a pity the mother says "Of course the boys don't really want to wear skirts". I find that hard to believe!
The other mother said her son fainted in the livingroom because he had to wear long pants at school. I find that even harder to believe.
But this proves that things have changed; 25 years ago no boy would have had the guts to wear a skirt just because it is a little warmer than usual in Wales.
Or, in posh English: It was simply not done!
Today they 'll do anything to be on the telly!
Jan.
How ironic, while everyone else is complaining of the heat, to see the tv interviewer looking cool and comfortable in jacket, tie, and ... trousers!
Although I am of course all in favour of the boys' protest against the discriminatory uniform rules, I don't really think that high temperatures are any more distracting in the classroom than boys wearing skirts!
Hemitom wrote:I take it that air conditioning is a luxury and not a need in the UK.
It seems that the good folk from Blighty start griping when the temperatures reach the upper 70s (~26C), so likely A/C is a luxury and most likely only deployed in whole-building settings for very new "tight" construction with limited air exchange with the outdoor air.
Here, most us don't start griping until it reaches into the mid 80s with high humidity. It's been over 90 here in Massachusetts for five days straight with a return to the upper 80s only very late this week. I'm going to hate having to don trousers tomorrow to go back to work....
It's 86F in my study right now and 63% relative humidity. I'm not pleased, but don't have circuit capacity for both computers and an A/C unit. Needless to say I'm dressed "appropriately" for the local micro-environment.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
What a shame that they were sent home. Still at least they tried.
For the record it has been over 90F most of the time for over a week now. The temperature has dropped to more comfortable 30 deg C today because of the nice breeze and a little bit of cloud cover. Considering we had 6 months of winter - I think we deserve this warm weather.
Air conditioning is common in offices with computers (to protect the computers) and I don't think it is common in schools.
