EDUCATION

The navy blue sweater is jarring. The rest of the students in their pale blue shirts and navy bottoms clatter through the classroom in a range of heights and hair colours, but within a sea of sameness: a wave of light blue. To the outside observer, the sweater on the kid with the cold makes her seem almost a renegade - the lone dark blue in the mass of pale, the one V-neck among the button-downs.

Uniforms are not something most public-school parents are used to - yet. But there's a debate rising with increasing volume across Canada: Does a school uniform foster an air of disciplined learning, or is it merely one factor in a down-to-business climate already in place?

Many American schools seem to think they've found the answer. In the U.S., uniforms in public schools are spreading fast: In 1999, 13 percent of elementary schools were using them, and nearly as many were considering them. Eighty-one percent of principals in such schools (surveyed by the National Association of Elementary School Principals) reported an increase in school spirit; 80 percent noticed improvement in classroom discipline; and 76 percent saw a decline in peer pressure. Three out of four principals said donning school colours increased student safety because strangers on school grounds became easier to spot.

Here at home, parents are beginning to wonder whether uniforms are the antidote to an attitude problem many see growing in Canadian public schools.

Citing a statistic that more than 4,000 acts of violence were committed by students in Ontario schools in the 1996-97 academic year, education minister Dave Johnson tied uniforms directly to discipline when he raised the idea of a mandatory dress code in all provincial public schools.

Quoted in The Globe and Mail in February '99, Johnson said, "What we're trying to do is create an environment that is most conducive to learning.... Not just the uniform itself, but the atmosphere that's engendered with the uniform - the discipline, the general air that it brings to the school.... Obviously there are views that if students are dressed in a totally unsuitable manner, in a sloppy manner, [it] makes it difficult to conduct proper teaching within the school."

Principals, teachers and even students in the few Canadian public elementary schools now with uniforms tend to agree. This September, kindergarten to grade-six kids at Oliver School in Edmonton are wearing uniforms for the first time because of the experience the school's had with mandatory uniforms in their Nellie McClung program - a publicly funded junior-high education for girls only, and part of Oliver School for the past four years.

"Teachers with experience outside this school noticed a higher degree of focus in the Nellie McClung program than in schools without uniforms," says principal Karen Linden. "And we began to notice a difference here as well. The junior high used to have free-dress day once a month, but we ended up doing away with it because there were more discipline problems that day and less focus on work."

With the introduction of a school outfit in the elementary school, supported by 90 percent of parents, Linden predicts similar benefits there. "I suspect we'll notice a difference in attitude down the road," she says. "Uniforms make students look and feel professional. They have a sense that they're here to do work. Their job is to be students."

But other schools are more reluctant to attribute good attitudes to a uniform. Surrey Traditional School is one of five public schools in B.C. that emphasizes back-to-basics education and teacher-centred classrooms. Each year, parents line up for days to secure a kindergarten space for their child. "I can't say uniforms enhance learning," says principal Shelley Nightingale. "These kids come from families who place a high value on education. The whole school has a different climate than a typical neighbourhood school."

Marshall Jarvis, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, says that most teachers in the separate-school system are in favour of uniforms. But, he contends, "if they disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn't make a difference because the other factors that make up school discipline are also in place. It's the least important issue for parents and teachers in Ontario right now."

And to kids like Denise Barras, a grade-five student at Toronto's Wilkinson Public School, being forced to wear a uniform would be a real hassle. "Everyone should be allowed to have their own style," she says. "No one in my school agrees we should all have to wear the same clothes."

While Denise's mother, Kathie Lamie, understands the arguments in favour of one look fitting all - the reduced peer pressure and the practicality - she agrees with her daughter that uniforms would stifle individuality and a personal sense of style. "It's almost militaristic to make them mandatory," she says.

But individuality's not an issue with the kids in blue. Lauren Vaupshas sometimes finds it boring wearing the same thing to school day after day, but disagrees that the outfit cramps her style. "Clothes don't express who you really are. They're only clothes," she says. "On weekends, I have enough trouble choosing what I want to wear." Melissa Sullivan, a Nellie McClung student, echoes Lauren's sentiments: "Some people choose their friends by what they wear instead of how they are. Now it's how they are instead of what they wear."

At Surrey Traditional, the principal sees her students expressing their individuality every day. "It's interesting to see how the kids create their own mark with barrettes or shoes with higher heels than they're allowed. And there's still competition - whose uniform is brand new and whose is second-hand."

Indeed, keeping tabs on individuality is one of the drawbacks. "Some parents buy large sizes to allow for growth, and other parents complain they look too sloppy," Nightingale notes, "so there's been a call for more policing, and a bit of tension among parents and between parents and teachers."

For some schools without uniforms, the mere prospect of introducing them is a huge drawback. Peter Driscoll, principal of Oxford School in Halifax, understands the advantages, but says in public schools, resistance would make uniforms impractical. "I expect if we tried to introduce them here, we'd be challenged under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - if not by the students, then by parents," he says. "Our school board stipulates kids have to be dressed properly: clean and without provocative messages on their T-shirts. That's enough."

One way public schools with uniforms try to diminish resistance is by keeping clothing costs low. Oliver School, which isn't making its school outfit mandatory, is selling white T-shirts for $10 and allowing any kind of navy bottom. Principal Karen Linden says she'll approach service clubs to support families that can't pay, and will even be flexible about the T-shirt if necessary, as long as the top is white. "This school has a wide socio-economic range, and I don't want to alienate anyone," she says.

Given such hot topics as brand-name bullying, provocative fashion, classroom disrespect, poor discipline and even school violence, mandatory dress for public-school students might slowly become a sign of our times - a very different time from when many parents grew up. "My first reaction to the idea is to laugh," says Jack Hurd, a music teacher in Perth, Ontario. "That's the part of me that remembers growing up in the '60s. But the other part of me is a teacher, and kids looking like slobs doesn't appeal to me, although I grew up looking like one. Now I don't think I would oppose school uniforms."

If enough parents and teachers become convinced that uniforms make sense in today's climate, public classrooms with pale blue shirts, dotted by the occasional navy sweater, might soon seem the contemporary view.

September 1999