The School Rules That Hardly Makes Any Sense Now

y friend who was supposed to meet me today canceled his plans because his wife called him and said today was the last to collect their kid's uniform. I was surprised how much time would it take to collect the school uniform, but he explained to me that it takes 5 to 6 hours since the shop is really crowded and the school has specifically asked them to collect the uniform from that particular shop.

Schools are very particular about buying shoes and uniforms from a particular place as they have to ensure that everyone should have the same shoes and the same type of shirt. As a child remember once I got my skirt stitched by a tailor near my house and not from the school tailor and every day in the assembly I was pulled out because my skirt looked different from the others.

A new national study has found that despite the belief of many parents and teachers, school uniforms don't seem to have any effect on young students' behavior or attendance overall as published in the Economic Times. 

According to Arya Ansari the lead author of the study, "While uniforms are supposed to build a sense of community, they may have the opposite effect, Fashion is one way that students express themselves, and that may be an important part of the school experience. When students can't show their individuality, they may not feel like they belong as much," he added.

Though many schools talk about the importance of uniform and how it promotes social  equality, the reality is that it does the exactly opposite. In fact private schools actually see uniforms as yet another way of branding themselves. Trendy, colourful uniforms help them and their students  to stand out in a competitive market.

School starts building this sense of competition and inbuilt this desire of wanting to look like everyone else from a very young age. And it doesn't end there, schools are also very particular about the haircut of the child, and how they should keep their hair. If a boy has his hair even a little bit longer than what is specified in the school rules, he would be asked to get a haircut.

I have known many students who wanted to paint their nails, and color their hair, but were unable to do so because the school thinks it is distracting for others and it would not look presentable. This is what a high school student had to say about the ban on hair coloring “I don’t think hair highlighting should be banned in schools. It only changes one’s appearance, not one’s inner self. Those who highlight their hair aren’t always the good students and those who don’t aren’t always the bad ones. It would be great if the students were allowed to open themselves up more,” she said. (Taken from a news article)

Though the general belief is that schools bring unity and make everyone look the same, I believe that schools should focus more on making every child feel special and appreciated for who they are and not just what they look like from the outside. A child's individuality is lost when he or she is made to follow rules blindly without any logical reasoning behind them.

A friend of mine recently had to change his home as the school wanted them to shift within a 2km radius as the school policy, as they wanted all students should be able to reach school within 20 minutes. It's not just the rule that is impractical but also the way it's implemented, as schools never take into consideration the actual difficulties a family has to go through just to follow their rules.

When my aunt was desperately trying to put her son in an English medium school the school refused admissions several times because the parents could not speak English, I find this really funny because that was the whole idea of finding an English medium school for her kid. some parents are specifically to talk to kids in English at home so that their child should not face any difficulty in school, but the way schools are behaving seems like they want to create difficulties for parents.

Isn't it the school's job to teach the language to the students? Teachers believe that if parents cannot understand English they will not be able to help the child at home with the homework but that's not always the case. I know a lot of families who are comfortable speaking their regional language at home and yet they are able to help their children with their homework. Some parents also believe that their kids should learn their regional language as it's our culture and heritage, so why can't they teach in both the languages?

Parents must empower their children and speak only in their mother tongue at home to revive the 'language barrier' that many of our children have, and equally, prevent our Regional languages from going extinct- Dr. P Raghu Ram, parent, and doctor, Hyderabad

There are many such rules in schools that make no sense and only serve to harass parents and students alike. From my personal experience, I think schools should focus on making learning fun and interesting for students instead of making them jump through hoops just to follow rigid rule