By Sophia Lashmar, Year 11
As a school, LGB is remarkably well-dressed. Students probably spend more time on their outfits, hair and makeup than on their homework. Is this not time that could be spent on far more important, and quite frankly, interesting matters?
If someone were to take a quick glance at how LGB students are dressed, they would rightly assume that our school is one of privilege, and assess that a great deal of time, effort and money are spent on appearances.
On the one hand, this is a positive aspect of the school, in that generally, students give the impression of well brought up, presentable, and (dare it be said), quite creative young adults. Part of LGB’s value to students who have previously had to wear school uniforms is that they are able to choose what they wear. The beauty of LGB’s dress code, or lack thereof, is that it allows students to embrace their creativity, express their personality and celebrate their differences.
However, when it comes to celebrating differences in clothes, the divide is growing. With most of the school population dressing in clothes that are fairly accessible, the average Zara, COS, high street store kind of outfits, there are some who indulge themselves in more than a few high price tag items. This can create quite a controversy between students, as while LGB is a school of privilege, there are certainly differing expectations of what is considered ‘casual’ and ‘for school’. The range of lifestyles between supposedly ‘like-minded’ students and their families can be shocking, and isolating for some. There is nothing wrong with how people choose to spend their time, or their money, but perhaps some take it too far, especially when taking into account what is and isn’t appropriate to wear for school.
Some students rock up at school dripping in designer labels, wrapped from head to toe in priceless artifacts of clothing, adorned in the latest styles from whatever fashion week they recently attended. The issue with this is that our corridors and classrooms become more like catwalks than learning environments. School becomes all about appearances and prestige, and far less attention is paid to the actual learning.
Furthermore, there is the question of what is deemed appropriate for school. Ecolint’s lack of clear and defined rules concerning the dress code results in some ambiguous situations. For the sake of both the students and the teachers, it should be made clear about what is and isn’t allowed in school. For example, there have been numerous instances of ‘dress coding’ of students, where the student argues they are perfectly well-dressed for school, while the teacher believes that they are inappropriately attired for attending a proper establishment. Not only does this create an awkward situation of clashing perspectives between student and teacher, but it also diverts time away from the class at hand, and can render the otherwise professional and calm classroom environment into a state of bedlam.
So, yes, while the beauty of Ecolint is that the rules are fairly lax, and while this is intended to allow students to embrace their individuality and cultivate their own sense of personal identity, there should be limits. Or maybe not even limits, but clear and defined rules, in order to redirect attention from what everyone might be wearing, back to what matters at the core, our learning.
