How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Faldaguy
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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by moonshadow » Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:04 am

Okay... let's not have any rules.
Hey Moon, you itchin' for a fight? :wink:

I've heard you many times stand up for an employer proclaiming they have the right to dictate what happens in their workplace, and to some degree I concur although in many cases the matter of a dress code just sustains the problems of judgment by image. However, technically in schools -- the kids, parents, and the public (except private schools) are the "employers" and the schools work for them. School uniforms may, but doubtfully, help with equality issues; but rules to expound upon someone's senses of morality or flagging ego are not going to improve academic outcomes. Sure, some kids will make mistakes, but isn't that a big part of what schools are all about, learning from our mistakes and growing up. I suspect it is the "adults" in those schools that are the ones in need of some lessons when it comes appearances.

Currently there are some bigger issues on rules in schools. A small town near here, where I actually helped build their High School, has acquired a "conservative" (reactionary? board that has just rammed through a new rule outlawing the posting of Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ and similar signs -- ostensibly to take the dissention of politics out of the classroom. Oath Keepers came to town to support them; and the students were lining the streets this past weekend to protest for their right to free speech. Here is one link: https://pen.org/press-release/oregon-sc ... -symbols/ google Newberg, OR for dozens more.

How about California's new school rule: Mandating vaccines to attend? I'll support it, but I expect one heck of a pushback from some others here.

As to too short skirts, well I enjoyed them and don't feel my education suffered all that much from a couple of missing inches of cloth! :D
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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Faldaguy wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 5:14 am Hey Moon, you itchin' for a fight?
No.
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pelmut
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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At school in the late 1960s, one of our teachers, under the guize of 'Social Studies', spent a whole day trying to indoctrinate us by showing a series of films glorifying communism and the Russian Revolution.  How he was allowed to get away with it, I don't know.  I was obliged to watch them all through several times because I was the school projectionist.

The effect on those who only watched them once was predictable: they were bored stiff and couldn't think why anyone would want to live under a regime like that; the effect on me was the same only more so.

[He later went for a sabbatical year in Russia, something he had always dreamed of -- and finished up begging to come home before the time was up.]
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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Faldaguy wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 5:14 amAs to too short skirts, well I enjoyed them and don't feel my education suffered all that much from a couple of missing inches of cloth! :D
Of course it has nothing to do with "inhibiting education". While I hate to speculate based on what others are thinking, I can hazard a guess on school dress codes limiting the shortness of skirts: Teens and hormones. In short (see what I did there? :D ) girls in short skirts are an incredible distraction for boys just entering their peak reproductive years. I speak from experience here! Sit me at a desk where all there is to look at is the instuctor's face, and I'll at least put forth the pretense of paying attention and hopefully absorbing some of the information. Put a lass in a miniskirt nearby, and I will be drawn to those legs, hoping she might shift her body just enough to get a peek at what's underneath the skirt.

It's not like anyone believes there's some specific point at which attention is magically diverted from instruction to ogling; they just arbitrarily pick a number that seems like a reasonable compromise between fashion/comfort and minimising distractions. The shorter the skirt, the more distracting. So find some middle ground where you might have a little distraction but not too much, and hope that the number is small enough not to sound like you're pushing a Taliban agenda.

And yes, Faldaguy, life is full of distractions that we must learn to ignore. But it's not an either-or dichotomy. There are times and places when children can work on learning to ignore distractions, and those circumstances when there isn't enough time to forcibly pull them away from distractions because you need every minute to cram some kind of learning into their heads.

All that being said, "my house, my rules." Employers and school administrators have the right to take steps they believe will make everyone do their jobs more efficiently, and if we don't like they way they run things we can shop elsewhere.
Ralph!
Faldaguy
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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by Ralph » Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:32 pm

All that being said, "my house, my rules." Employers and school administrators have the right to take steps they believe will make everyone do their jobs more efficiently, and if we don't like they way they run things we can shop elsewhere.
Ralph!
Shop elsewhere? Really...public schools are often tied to geographical districts-- where you live dictates the school. Whose house is it? Paid by our tax dollars...not by the administrators -- they are not the owners or shareholders. If you want to raise the argument of "my house, my rules" then perhaps you could say the School Board, usually elected by votes from the district residents, have the power to provide the policies for the Administration to enforce -- therefore, students and their particularly their parents, should be the guiding light.

And I still don't buy the nonsense about skirts and distractions -- hormones will run in all directions regardless. Boy/girl; girl/boy; girl/girl; boy/boy; and maybe some papa/mama stuff too -- in skirts, pants, sweaters, gym clothes or even parkas. Let's grow up and accept that attraction and distraction are part of life.
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SkirtsDad
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

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The clue should probably be in the name, it's a school UNIFORM!!! Whilst one might argue about how restrictive or not a uniform should be, whether boys can wear skirts etc., surely schools need to be able to, and probably should, enforce the rules they do have. Otherwise the idea of a uniform risks becoming pointless. On this occasion I find little, if any, sympathy for the mother. If her daughter was of such unusual proportions that apparently no compliant length skirt could be found, then why not send her in trousers?

Did anyone else take the time to check out the mother's Facebook page? Here's a snippet:
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On the subject of school uniforms I would say that I am generally supportive, providing they do not cross into the business protection arena. As a parent they are a godsend. It makes mornings simple. There are no arguments about what to where. When my son was at primary school his polo shirt and black trousers could be bought cheaply from high street shops. The trousers were practical and had a zipped rear pocket so he didn't lose dinner money, etc.

Secondary school uniform was my problem. You had to buy logoed clothes, which were expensive and only available from two shops, neither near me. I think, in this case, it is exploitative and gives a probably lifetime guaranteed income to two businesses.
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pelmut
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Re: How the length of a skirt can inhibit learning?

Post by pelmut »

SkirtsDad wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 8:28 am ...You had to buy logoed clothes, which were expensive and only available from two shops
Both this and the school's behaviour towards the girl stem from the same problem: someone who has a monopoly of power and is mis-using it.  

If the school has a uniform, then everyone who attends, including the staff, should be wearing it and it should be specified in such general terms that it is available from a variety of sources.  If the girl was sent home for breaking the rules (assuming the rules and the penalty were made clear at the outset), the teachers who were also breaking those rules should have been sent home or fined a day's pay.  It might seem draconian, but anything else would earn disrespect for the rules and those who administer them, so you may as well not have the rules.
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