Are school uniforms necessary?

JDough90 (UK)

As a longtime high school teacher, I had to, from the 70's right through the 90's put up with my senior boys coming to class in flower-decorated boxer shorts with slits for flies and intentionally opening their legs while seated to provoke me. The girls in class couldn't see sideways or backwards to observe this. Numerous complaints to my principals always got the same retort: "We have no dress codes here and they are entitled to wear what they want." The boys often dressed that way even in frigid New York wintertime. Girls sometimes had bare midriffs in warm weather, but were never so blatantly provocative as the boys. In defense of many of my boy students, they ignored the showoffs and dressed sensibly.

Three schoolchildren are seen leaving a restaurant in Godalming in England, July 13, 2001. [Photo/IC]