args

School uniforms

I thank my opponent for the effort invested in this debate. Rebuttals: "Child labour is not necessarily bad." "The term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that: is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work." source: http://www.ilo.org... Child labour is without doubt and by definition bad. Fair trade clothing is more expensive than slave-labour-produced clothing, thus putting even more financial strain on poor families. It is unlikely that all schools can be outfitted with fair trade clothing, since the US alone have 50 million children at school age (source: http://www.childstats.gov... ). This cannot be produced by fair trade capacities. "Since you are using this the entire year, you would buy much less clothes." "Also, you can show yourself outside of school as well." This is a clear contradiction. You clearly state that the uniform would be worn at school while other clothes are worn outside of school. Since clothing needs to be washed at LEAST every two days, regardless how long you wear it on a particular day, due to the smell of sweat, the uniforms will in no way reduce the number of clothing pieces the pupils wear. It will just be an additional amount of clothing to be worn in school. For similar reasons, you need more than one set of uniform. You cannot wear one set of uniform for an entire week without washing. So you need more than one set of uniform, at least doubling the cost you claim. you claim that the clothing need not get dirty, but we are discussing children here. Many will be careless. "Also there are sponsor programs to get the uniforms." By the numbers, even if only 10% of all children needed a sponsor, this would mean 5 million children, and by the cost we have established, this would equal 150$ x 2 (two sets) x 5 000 000 = 1.5 BILLION DOLLARS. This money would easily be better invested in books and computers. I also doubt there will be enough sponsors for that demand. "Also, even without the uniforms, there would still be child labour, so there would be no big difference." We're talking mass orders of a total of 15 billion dollars' worth of clothing. Of course those will make a difference. In order to fight child labour, we need to stop supporting it. Paying billions of dollars to people who abuse children as work slaves will support them greatly, encouraging them to keep going. "All clothes would do the same, so it would not matter if it was a school uniform or not." As established above, school uniforms are ADDITIONAL clothing. So they will also mean an additional poisoning the environment. Clothes in the numbers listed above are only produced on pre-order, so this is additional toxic waste. "Since you would have less clothes, there would be less clothes to wash." But there's MORE clothes to wash, as shown above. "Also there are eco friendly detergents." That doesn't make them harmless. Even completely bio-degradable detergents cause problems: http://theconversation.com... "Bullying can come from clothing, and even though bullying would not become completely nullified, it will be weakened, which is better than nothing." But by your own account you argued there was no need to go against child labour, if it didn't make much of a difference. You're making up arguments opportunistically, to fit your very need. This is a contradiction. Also, I highly doubt that bullying would be effected in the least, as bullying because of clothing is just an expression of moral defects in the bullies. What you claim would be the equivalent of saying that giving a man in the rain a torn umbrella was better than nothing - yet he will be completely soaked, as the umbrella doesn't actually help getting the man out of the rain. Bullying must be counteracted with awareness programs, not by forcing children to wear clothes they did not chose for themselves - which is in itself a kind of suppression. How can suppressing your freedom protect you from your freedom being suppressed by bullies? In the end, bullies who didn't want the school uniforms will pick on the same children AGAIN because they have to wear these uniforms BECAUSE of their complaints about bullying. This will seriously not solve the problem. "Just because someone wears a uniform doesn't mean they will fight with others." Read "The Wave", an accurate account of an experiment on fascism conducted in a school some decades ago. Uniforms bring groups closer together and in conflict with other groups. That is why football teams have uniforms and mascots. This is to make them try harder to defeat the "others". Uniforms exist for discernment, or DISCRIMINATION as a synonym. It creates borders, dividing groups and creating group identities set against each other. "Furthermore, many parents walk home with their students, so they would stop a fight if one were to occur." This is another contradiction. If parents were able to protect their children, there would be no bullying because of clothing right now, either. Parents cannot achieve this, nor can teachers. Otherwise, the whole point about stopping bullying through uniforms would be moot. The uniforms are supposed to stop or reduce the bullying that is totally out of control right now. "However this bullying already exist and is already practised. With or without uniforms, it will occur, but with uniforms, you will get rid of bullying through clothing." Now you admit that bullying will continue "with or without clothing", meaning you admit that the amount of bullying will actually NOT decrease. Thank you for aiding my point. "This is unimportant. There are many ways to show yourself in school, and let's face it, clothing is not often used." Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." You are seriously arguing against the Declaration of Human Rights? "With or without uniforms, people still get bullied for their skin. So it doesn't matter." Exactly. So uniforms are useless and cost way too much. "And also, if you ask me, getting bullied because you have bad clothes because you are pour is worst than getting bullied because you are African." That is a hypothesis I would like you see defend. you are actually claiming that RACISM is less bad than being bullied for clothes you can change? Surely, it is worth to be discriminated by something you are not accountable for, because that is unjust and you cannot do anything to avoid it, making you completely helpless. "I would like to point out that my opponent only mentioned small scenarios that practically never happen." Numbers mean nothing. Regardless how often something wrong happens, it is still wrong. Confusing quality and quantity is a critical mistake. Even if only one child has to suffer, will YOU take responsibility for it with YOUR decision to support school uniforms? So far, these situations don't happen a lot, because we don't HAVE school uniforms in most parts. Who are you to foretell the future? I state that I'm WORRIED about harmful consequences, while you just brush them away. That is not the intent of a debate. "inappropriate clothing". This is a circular argument. You DEFINE school uniforms as "appropriate" and other clothing as "inappropriate". Then you go on to explain that appropriate clothing is better, hence uniforms are better. Most schools have regulations against "revealing" clothing, and children break these rules. What makes you believe that a rule to wear school uniforms would fare any better? "sleep". How about parents - you gave responsibility to them with your "walking home" argument above - simply teach their children not to be so picky about their clothes? Ultimately, your "argument" is a disguised repetition of your - self-admittedly weak - bullying argument. Children need to pick clothes carefully because of the fear of bullying. It wouldn't be long before bullying took another form, for instance freckles or spots. Then the same amount of time would be needed to cover those up before class, resulting in the same problem of sleep-deprivation. Bullying exists and is undesirable, so pupils subjected to it will always try to find ways to counteract it. These protective measures will always consume time. So if bullying is not ended, there will not be additional time for sleep. Here's a simple solution to the sleep problem, though: pick clothes the evening before, have them ready when you wake up. No hasty decisions needed in the morning while you are not yet fully functional due to sleep-deprivation. Since this is my final go, I would like to thank my opponent for this short bout. I will summarize: My opponent suggests supporting child labour, has no regard for the Human Right to Self-Expression and considers racism to be less of a problem than clothing issues - all in order to defend the obligatory introduction of school uniforms. I think I have made it fairly clear that on these grounds, no solid argument in favour of school uniforms can be upheld. These points of view may not be the price we pay just because we can't get bullying under control. These are three of the most basic rights for humans ever established, and we may not give those up because of the failure of our school system to educate children on why bullying is bad. Thank you for reading this.