Whenever a cold front arrives, there are always news reports of teachers punishing students for wearing extra clothing over their uniform to keep warm. Those who get punished feel aggrieved and complain to the media, resulting in the school offering a public apology and promising to remedy the situation.
This year was no exception.
New Taipei City’s Shulin High School was called out for having students do jumping jacks due to breaches of the dress code.
The latest dress code policy promulgated by the Ministry of Education says that schools do not have a set date for students to change to the winter dress code. They are allowed to wear long-sleeve or short-sleeve uniforms in accordance with their comfort level. When the temperature drops, students are allowed to wear extra layers of clothing underneath or over their school uniforms, the guiding principle being that the attire should still display the student’s school identity. In other words, students are adhering to the rule as long as they have a piece of uniform on, regardless of it being a summer or winter uniform.
Students have come up with a variety of ways of expressing themselves. There are students who wear sports uniform shorts with uniform tops. A few years ago, a male student went to school in a skirt, while female students sometimes prefer to wear short skirts on casual days. Due to gender equality, respect of bodily autonomy and out of fear of wardrobe malfunctions, teachers can provide advice, or a long moral lecture if that is their wont, but should not mete out punishments, and they need to choose their words carefully in case students feel offended and file complaints, ending in the school having to offer a public apology.
I find a freer dress code not necessarily a bad thing, as the school uniform and jacket might not always be able to provide the comfort and warmth that the student needs. During major events, students have always complied with the school’s regulations for the wearing of uniforms.
As education has evolved from “spoon feeding” to diverse learning, so the dress code should shift from fixed and rigid to flexible and at individual discretion. As long as the attire is not provocative or overly revealing, we should respect students’ rights to bodily autonomy and self-expression, not to mention that corporal punishment has been banned for years by the legislature. It is ludicrous that there are still teachers meting out corporal punishment to students for breaching the dress code.
There is a joke that goes like this: During a flag-raising ceremony, a teacher conducted a dress code inspection and reprimanded a student for having blond hair, threatening to punish him. Another classmate raised his hand to say that the student in question had naturally blond hair. The teacher responded that rules are rules and asked him to dye it black.
In regards to regulations and rules, teachers should keep up with the times to abolish those that are out of date and think carefully about whether the rules actually carry instructive meaning, instead of blindly applying their past learning experiences to students. If I were the parent of that student forced to do jumping jacks for breaching the dress code due to the cold temperature, I would be gravely disappointed as well.
Lin Cheng-wu is a junior-high schoolteacher.
Translated by Rita Wang
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