magine a world where everyone dresses exactly alike and if you decided to break the mold you would be penalized. How interesting does that seem? From my viewpoint, school uniforms try to make everyone the same, old, boring person. We all, obviously, have our own personal quirks that separate and make us different from every other person in school.

Everyone dressing the same is not only a negative thought process for students but also goes against individuality. Many students at our school don’t agree with the thought of uniforms. According to DJ Bero, “It’s a bad idea…[uniforms] really don’t let everyone be themselves.” We should all be able to express how we feel through our articles of clothing to some extent, within the boundaries of the school dress code. Subliminally, making uniforms mandatory takes away a certain percent of our freedom and some even see it as a soft form of communism. “Uniforms take away everyone’s individuality. Kids have very few chances to express creativity and they can do that by wearing whatever they want,” states Kris Christensen.

Since kindergarten, and all throughout our schooling years, we’ve been told to be ourselves and don’t be afraid to stand out. Uniforms go against this idea and take away from the diversity in schools. Although many adults may see school uniforms as being a way to make everyone equal, they actually don’t. It’s human nature to want to stand out and be at least a little different from everyone. Therefore, if everyone wore the same uniform, someone would maybe dye their hair pink, or wear a certain necklace, just to be different from the norm.

However, school uniforms can be very helpful to the social aspects of school. Having everyone dress the same means there’s less room for cliques, and as we know, cliques are everywhere in high school. Students often get ridiculed on how they dress and if they don’t have the newest, trendiest clothing. Uniforms would solve this issue and possibly make the invisible line between the social classes disappear. Furthermore, our school could become more unified. Since people couldn’t be judged on their clothing anymore, all the students could become more of a larger group, rather than many different cliques.

The option of getting school uniforms isn’t in the near future for Whitman but many other schools across the United States have them. Although there are many good things about school uniforms, there are many cons as well. The difference of some adults not seeing eye-to-eye with students also factors into this on-going debate.