All across the country, schools require students to dress appropriately when they arrive at the beginning of the day. It makes sense to require a certain dress code, but is making uniforms mandatory really necessary? Originally coming from a public school, I know what it is like to be able to dress how you want, but since being at Faith Lutheran, I now also know what it is like to wear a uniform every day.

The question is: which way is better? The people that advocate for having students wear uniforms say that by doing so it makes everyone look put together. I would argue that we should want students to be individual and unique. High school is a place where you’re supposed to discover who you are. You go through a lot of changes between freshman year and senior year, and some would argue that they are practically new people by the time they graduate.

Teenagers especially like to rebel and fall victim to social trends. Teenagers being able to wear their own clothes is beneficial during high school when they are figuring out who they are as a person. Wearing a uniform doesn’t allow students to experiment with fashion and forces them to look like everyone else. Uniforms don’t allow students to become their individual self and doesn’t allow them to explore the person that they really are.

Uniforms cause students to rebel against the rules. Uniforms are forced upon students and many student choose to not follow dress code for comfort, or to express individuality. When students are allowed to wear what they want less dress code rules are broken. The rules aren’t broken in public schools due to the amount of options they have when deciding what to wear in the morning. If uniforms were not used anymore, students would follow dress code rules which would overall benefit the learning experience by having less citations for dress code violations.

Overall, uniforms prove to be a negative rule in the school system. Uniforms don’t allow students to express their individuality, don’t promote a better learning environment, and don’t allow students to experiment with fashion before they enter college. I believe that uniforms should not be required due to the negative effects that they have on students. The pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to this issue.