As our country’s four-year-olds prepare to start the sad Irish practice of dressing in school uniforms for almost every day of the rest of their entire childhood until they are 18, shouldn’t we as a nation at least pause and consider how oppressive and totally unnecessary this practice is?
The vast majority of children across the EU, including small numbers in Ireland, will go to school in September in their own clothes and no catastrophe will befall them!
As a post-primary teacher, it galls me to see the low-intensity culture of intimidation, humiliation and coercion of students which the daily enforcement of school uniform rules entails.
It makes a mockery of all the talk about student wellbeing when the school itself becomes the bully.
These rules and practices are unjustifiable and anti-educational.
They are a huge waste of money and time. I have no doubt that they will be seen, like corporal punishment eventually was, as oppressive of students, and may end up in the courts. I suggest that the way to start this process is for progressive, forward-thinking school leaders to implement no-uniform trials for a year. If they do so, I suspect very few would return to the outdated practice.
–
Gearóid Ó Riain
Be You at School
(email: saynotoschooluniforms@gmail.com)
Westport, Co Mayo
This column piece was submitted to the Donegal News as a Letter to the Editor. Letters are carried in our Thursday edition each week. If you have a letter you would like featured in the Donegal News, please send to editor@donegalnews.com
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