Rules & 'Discipline': The broader debate

I read with great interest a recent editorial addressing the issue of children being turned away from schools because of infringements on the dress code. I couldn’t help but shake my head and sigh in dismay at the position taken by the editorial.

The editorial stated that students who refuse “to conform to their school's dress code are giving a pretty good indication of the kind of citizens they are likely to become.” This claim transcended mere commentary and made a sweeping indictment on the character of all students who choose to wear tighter pants and shorter skirts.

That’s right. Those girls who aren’t wearing skirts at the right level and boys who are wearing tighter pants than permitted will likely become undesirables in the society. Yes, they’re nothing but pieces of gum on the heel of society’s shoe. 

As a young Jamaican I am most offended by that statement, as it completely ignores important issues that ought to be featured in this discussion. 

We must ask ourselves if some of these rules are still relevant and if they actually foster the kind of discipline Jamaicans need to thrive in a world with rapidly changing social norms and attitudes.

Some adults argue that this generation of students is lawless, because in their time, these same rules were enforced and respected. Jamaican schools produced the all-perfect crop of adults who have shaped the peaceful, immaculate country we live in with balanced budgets and a booming economy. Let’s not pretend that there is a perfect, or even a remotely close to perfect, society that young Jamaican's are getting ready to derail. 

Let’s face it—many school rules are archaic and irrelevant. The same editorial admitted some were “left over from our colonial past.” 

Administrators would have us believe that uniforms create an atmosphere of equality. This puerile argument ostensibly justifies enforcing conformity. Sorry to say, but this claim isn’t true. It betrays the naiveté of some administrators who are unaware of the social dynamics of young people. What do we think is in some of the barrels that swarm our ports year round? What do we think some of the ‘back-to-school’ remittances are being used for? Parents innately want the best for their children and for some that means brand name companions for the dull khaki pants and blue tunics. And there are also those students who save year round to be able to get what they want. 

Students gladly revel in sportsmanship to see which of them are wearing the most expensive shoes or sporting the best looking backpack. The idea that brand name envy is in any way eliminated by uniforms is weak; just ask the sixth formers wearing Lacoste white shirts. 

Where is the voice of the Guidance Counselors Association of Jamaica in this debate? The fate of our students cannot be decided with emotion and dogma. We need to take a critical look at why students flout dress codes. Instead of writing them off as a speck on the windshield of our perfect society, we must engage students as their guardians, not dictators. It cannot be that we, as a nation, have accepted that these young men and women are simply unruly. Given that each child is an individual, we must examine whether it is sensible to foster discipline through enforced uniformity. Where is the consideration that these children are fighting to express themselves? 

 

I believe that teachers and administrators could use the time spent policing conformity to do something more constructive. Surely there are better ways to engage uncooperative students than embarrassing them in front of their peers and suspending them from school. Here we have the potential to stimulate needed dialogue about social attitudes and personal responsibility being wasted. Instead of taking a holistic approach to discipline, we punish disobedient students with brutal force in hopes of curbing behaviours we arbitrarily decided were inappropriate. 

The editorial points out another important issue. We need to consider the generation gap between school administrators and students and the role it plays in the testy exchanges that are frequently reported. Students and administrators have two separate views of the world and how one should live. This is most evident when we consider notions of respectability and preoccupations with self-presentation. 

Our generation is less bothered with the long-held view that appearance is somehow linked to intelligence. I think that has a lot to do with the remarkable progress we have been making to ensure every child has access to secondary education—regardless of where you get your mail. But it also has to do with rapidly changing social norms. Our children are less prepared for the world because intransigent administrators are trying to recreate and impose the social norms of decades past.  

A middle ground has to be met because we cannot continue sending dissident students home in droves. While children need boundaries, there is no need to condemn and stigmatize the choices these children make. We must recognize their agency and their right to self-expression. Negotiations will not proceed productively if supposedly all-perfect administrators are pitted against what the editorial suggests are the future miscreants of our country. Mature, all-rounded debate is needed, however that might be hard to get since reprimanding students and holding sacred post-colonial ideals are easier to do. 

Link to the editorial: http://mobile.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120908/cleisure/cleisure1.php