"We try not to make a huge deal out of it, but we also want to be protecting the school environment," said Rick Mondloch, an associate principal at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, who recently ordered a "Pimps" shirt turned inside out. "These shirts are more risque than they were even five years ago and probably a little more blunt, so you have to be attuned to it."Oh, spare me. Why is anyone paid to spend time on this problem? Ban all shirts with any message and move on to trying to do something to educate students. Prince's comment is especially laughable, because it highlights the challenge for those who manufacture those T-shirts teenagers buy: Figure out phrases with sexual connotations that won't be obvious to people who aren't teenagers.
Robynne Prince, an assistant principal at Eleanor Roosevelt, said: "If there are shirts with obvious sexual connotations, then we know exactly what we're going to do, but there are some students who push the envelope."
September 27, 2006
A big WaPo story on the sexy T-shirts teenagers wear.
Come on, should this be a long news story? It's all padded out with phrases that are printed on T-shirts, and surely you get the point after, oh, the fourth one. Or are you telling me it's a serious issue because school officials have to wonder and fret about what, oh, what to do about it?
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57 comments:
"Ban all shirts with any message and move on"
Exactly!
Derve: False. There are plenty of plain T-shirts. And the simple solution is to wear them inside out. Alternatively: uniforms!
"Real American schools" should have mandatory uniforms. Period. It would solve a lot of extra-educational problems besides the naughty word one.
And don't you realize that the "narrow tailoring" here is what has the potential to violate freedom of speech? You're judging the message to draw the lines. A broad, content-neutral rule is much more legally sound than judging the message.
"It's nice that you want to protect the "children" from themselves, but I'm surprised you support such draconian measures. After shirts, they gonna start evaluating how tight the blouses and jeans are? Or how you're sitting in class showing off your assets? (Button up, missy!)"
Children do need protected from themselves. That's why they're called "children". Since society no longer has a reliable standard of acceptable public dress, a mandatory uniform is the only way to solve this and similar problems.
I dress uniformly, and it solves many, many problems in life. Not that I was given to wear "Juicy" sweatpants or anything. Different problems.
Everyone should accessorize with perfume!
Speaking as an actual parent, I'd be fine with uniforms. Our kid doesn't have any printed t-shirts anyway, so I'd be fine with that too.
They do it because they're being subversive. The obvious solution is for all the teachers to start wearing similar t-shirts; even if one sight of Mr. Smith, the septugenerian math teacher, wearing a tight t-shirt that says "two boys for every girl" doesn't make them retch convulsively, there is nothing that can make a trend seem uncool faster than that trend's co-option by those people who are by definition the epitome of uncool, viz., the faculty.
On the other hand, I fully agree with the uniform suggestion. Even if the uniform is little more than dress pants and tie, that'd be an improvement.
I've never understood parents who foot the bill for such clothing purchases.
Put me down for plain Tshirts. Or even plain button-down shirts.
I like the idea of white shirts and plain black pants as a uniform. It's not oppressive, like plaid pleated skirts or ties. Just slightly serious and simple. It would save parents a lot of money too.
My first reaction is to ask "What kind of parent lets her kid wear a shirt like this?"
Apparently Derve has answered the question.
Packers clothing is fine. Vikings clothing is not -- unless it has a really tight collar, befitting a team of chokers. :)
Derve,
I'm a liberal Gen X'r who only had his first kid a year ago, and I can promise you that my kid won't wear anything that be remotely construed as "suggestive" to school.
I have a really good argument for dress codes. Teenagers wear stuff to be deliberately subversive and provocative, teenage girls and boys wear sexually suggestive t-shirts, kids experience tremendous peer pressure over what kinds of clothes they wear, parents have to pay for the brand names that kids want to wear to school, and it would be a hell of a lot simpler just to require kids to wear uniforms.
Look, I'm all about teenagers having the freedom to express themselves in a variety of ways. But part of being a parent is teaching your kids how to express themselves and their individuality, and I don't think wearing a sexually suggestive t-shirt is an appropriate way to express yourself when you're at school.
"I hate to be the voice of reality facing off against all you Boomers looking to fix problems."
LOL. I know Ann is a boomer, but I have no idea how old Madison Man and Palladian are, and I'm on the XY Cusp. My parents would be baby boomers, had they been born in America, I suppose. I mainly agree with Xanthippas' comment, although my son's a little older than his.
Question: Derve, are your children of an age (I guess 8-16) for the concerns entailed in this issue to be of concern to you, in anything other than the abstract? Just curious.
enacting a white shirt/black pants dress code allows parents to shirk that very responsibility, while reigning in the individual freedoms of those students who have already learned this simple lesson.
This is crap. School is not a place where children or teens need the "freedom" to express their "individuality" through their clothing choices. Free dress makes clothing a perpetual worry and a distraction to the purpose of school, which is learning, not socializing.
My kids' school has a simple dress code: red, white, or blue shirts with a collar (polos, button-downs, or turtlenecks), blue or tan pants, shorts, or for the girls, jumpers or skirts. There are rules about how short the shorts and skirts can be, and rules about how long the pants can be, and rules about how low-riding the shorts and pants can be.
It is the easiest thing in the world for my kids to get dressed for school in the morning, and it is easy and inexpensive to keep them in school clothes. Target, Wal-Mart and Old Navy all sell fine, durable school clothes that fit the dress code.
I went from a uniform school to a free dress school in junior high, and it was a nightmare. I never had the right clothes, and even when I did, I still wanted others. On the odd days our school here does allow free dress, the difference in the atmosphere is palpable, and it's not a positive change.
Figure out phrases with sexual connotations that won't be obvious to people who aren't teenagers.
You might be surprised how innocent many teenagers (even teenagers who make a great show of being "worldly") can be. In high school, one of my sisters got a car, and the license plate included "PEN15" -- you'd think they'd scan for that kind of thing, but evidently now. At any rate, she did not realise how that looked until it was pointed out to her by her younger sister (then in elementary school).
Re: uniforms -- splendid suggestion! I simply do not understand why people object to school uniforms. Sure people can play with it (e.g. wearing accessories like scarves or purses, or having things tailored so the skirts are short or everything is oversize, etc.), but the range of potential offensiveness is severely constricted. And buying school clothes is greatly simplified too.
I wonder how many kids take jobs just so they can buy the clothes they feel they need. They should be doing homework!
Interesting comments re: "How I will dress my child when they visit Babylon"
Xanthippas -- speaking as the Dad of a teenager and a tween, I have to say that your statement I can promise you that my kid won't wear anything that be [can] remotely construed as "suggestive" to school makes me simultaneously laugh and roll my eyes. You have so much to learn.
I'm not a "Boomer", I'm 31. And, to throw the proverbial wrench in the rusty gears of Derve's brain machine, I'm gay and don't plan on having children. Armed with this information, I'm sure i'll be accused of being out of touch. But I was a teenager once, at a school that didn't require uniforms, and I don't remember any girls or boys wearing shirts with nasty messages printed on them, save for the stray "Poison" or "Whitesnake" tee-shirt. The culture has obviously changed in the last 15 years and so the administration of public schools should adapt to those changes. As Ann suggests, instead of trying to decipher the patois of teenagers and those who sell things to them on a flimsy case-by-case basis, just institute a simple uniform (not necessarily plaid skirts and ties, though I have nothing against them). Lots of problems solved with minimal effort.
I'm not a "Boomer", I'm 31.
And I'm 24! And I think we should force them all into Eton collars! Hahahaha.
I'm sure calls for "home visits from the homework police!!" will be next for some of these parents who need extra help raising their kids in these scary times.
I don't care about the parents -- if we think homework is important (I am actually agnostic about this, until high school, at which point I think it can be meaningful), we should arrange our grading systems so that if you fail to do homework, you fail! And stop giving out so many A's.
Can anyone explain the rise in "alternative" high schools? That is, publicly funded schools for students we don't want to drop out, but who just aren't into all your unnecessary rules and restrictions.
Derve makes a big deal about how much these cost:
Alternative schools financed by the taxpayers for all others. Open your wallets because Joan won't popular as a kid.
Excellent point! Stop funding them.
When I saw the shirts my first thought was: "Gee, wasn't that a lyric to a Beach Boys / Led Zepplin / ACDC song I listened to when I was in high school in the 80's?". And then I think of my parents dismay that their children would listen to so much smutty music. And now I when I hear some kid blasting 50 Cent or Kane West from the car seven cars behind my I think: "My God! Those kids are gonna be deaf by the time they're 35! I need to invest in companies that manufacture and sell hearing aids and wait for the inevitable 'Boom' market". OK - THEN I wonder how these kids listen to such smutty music.
It seems the shirts are more of a distraction to the adults than they are to student's classmates. And if you think the shirts are bad, try listening to some of the music they listen to every day. But isn't all this the result of living in an open society, where self expression is in itself a recognized societal value? We idolize the rebel - the maveric who breaks the rules, thinks "outside the box" and accomplishes great things. I don't think kids should have free reign, but I do think we as adults need to be careful where, i.e. with what issues, we choose to draw the line. I have no kids, same situation as Palladian, so maybe I have less of a bone to pick.
Did I just describe being gay as a "situation"?
PS. I will be subbing in the local school district soon so I will have to be aware of dress codes.
Simon says:-)
...there is nothing that can make a trend seem uncool faster than that trend's co-option by those people who are by definition the epitome of uncool, viz., the faculty.
HA! A most obvious solution. I think I'll get a mohawk! That'll show em!!!
Derve: Anything to keep the laziest parents happy then. Garanimal dorks rule the school. Your kid can be cool too!
So, tell me, Derve, were you sent to a military school and forced to wear a real uniform 24/7 except during holidays when you could've gone home to Mum and Dad, but didn't, because they were off doing something without you? Why must the simple, flexible dress code I described, which eliminates the problems of inappropriate dress, cliques, and any number of distractions in the school, be reduced to "garanimals", worn of course only by dorks? And who said anything about wanting my kids to be "cool"?
You've got a serious anti-dress code attitude, and I'd love to explore where that's coming from. If the best refutation you can come up with is to blame lazy parents, you're going to have to work harder than that to convince anyone. Teachers and administrators love dress codes, the vast majority of parents support them, and the kids, quite frankly, don't care.
They can wear whatever they want outside of school, after all. How is it any different from the majority of adults who have to dress in a particular way for their workplace versus how they dress at home? It isn't.
You think this has something to do with protecting our kids against societal pressures -- you're right. What's wrong with freeing my kids from having to care about what they're wearing to school? How is that a bad thing? They still have to deal with every other aspect of peer pressure. You seem to think that putting all the kids in polo shirts is going to turn them into mind-controlled zombies. Ha! It seems that you have even less confidence in your children's abilities than you're accusing the pro-dress code side of having in theirs: you think that if your kids have to follow a dress code, they'll somehow lose the ability to differentiate themselves from the herd.
I hate this superior-parenting crap when my girlfriends do it over coffee. I didn't expect to see it in comments on Althouse.
How I'd love to be a kid again to tweak the school administration. This ban will lead to a lot of creativity, like mixing sex with a political message or a sentiment about the Bush or TWAT that he is waging.
I have the same fun here in Austin, TX, where they are trying to censor our books, magazines and internet at the local Senior Activities Center.
First they censored a Playboy I put in the informal magazine library. So I put Laura Schlessinger's wide-open beaver shots on the two terminals for default browser pages. Then they installed filters. I then fought back with Peacefire.org circumventors, which worked well. Then they removed the filters and put up an adhesion contract that anyone using the terminals agreed not to download "sexually explicit material" or he would lose his privileges. I am preparing a lawsuit contesting censorship of legal adult material in an adult facility. We'll see. What distinguishes me from a "terrorist" is that I do feel you should exploit all peaceful means of resolving the problem before blowing the place up.
You start with the clothes, you never stop there.
Criminy, Derve -- have we touched a nerve or what? Can you give one single example of a public school with a dress code that then went on to implement even more draconian strictures on the students?
You missed the point that I'm not the one imposing the dress code, it's the school. In some cases, it's the school district. I'm just a parent who happens to think that school dress codes are a good policy.
Public school attendance isn't mandatory, anyway: you can always home school if you're so worried about your children being swept away by the herd. Or by the parents of the children of the herd. Or whatever it is that you're paranoid about.
There are schools around here with dress codes, and ones without dress codes. I'm lucky in that I was able to choose a school that offers an excellent curriculum; it just happens to have a dress code. It doesn't bother me.
It's beyond weird that you're predicting I'm going to have problems with my kids because I like their school's dress code. It's not as if I make them wear those clothes when they're not in school, you know? I want to know how you can infer so much about my family dynamic from my support of school dress codes. I've yet to see any research blaming dress codes for the kind of behavior problems you're expecting to descend on me. I have seen research that says families that eat dinner together, and pray together, things we do every day, are much less likely to experience these problems.
I get that you don't like dress codes. I don't understand your hysterical reaction to them, though. And I don't appreciate your continued insistence that I'm lazy parent who is going to end up with f'ed-up, rebellious teens. And this?
Damn... a root canal, TMJ, and a lump?
You forgot the thyroid cancer. But thanks for playing!
Derve, my daughter wants to express herself at school by wearing a bathing suit. Should I allow her to do that?
There is a line, I just want to know where it is.
Well, I once got paid to write a story on exactly this topic. Of course, I was not a high-profile WaPo reporter but a beat pounder at a small provincial sheet.
And the racy language was a shirt that read BITCH BITCH BITCH.
No reason to mention this except that it happened in 1974.
I should admit that when I was in junior high school, I was the main student who made a point of violating the dress code and got in trouble for it. (Skirt length was the big issue.)
Buck: It's called content neutral regulation. Look it up.
So much willful point-missing, such a (relatively) brief comment thread.
Derve: I made the crack about military school after you made the crack about my lack of popularity. Mine was open speculation and stated as such. Yours was an insulting assumption, and you continue to make personal comments without justification. The fact that you read my blog and saw fit to bring my health issues into this discussion shows how low you'll go to try and make a point.
Gotta go work at my kids mind-controlled school for a few hours. I'll catch up with you later.
These kids today. What's the matter with them? Why can't they be like we were?
We weren't beaten enough when we were small:
Speak roughly to your little boy
And beat him when he sneezes
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases!
. . . this is true more of teenagers than of little boys, though.
And now my confession of teenage rebellion -- I went about with my shirt untucked when I was a high schooler. And I wore open-toed shoes. With socks!! And I wore my hair shaggy -- Beethoven style. What a rebel I was. I even wore short pants.
The real rebel, of course, was the Nigerian chap who went to school in a suit. That's genuine independence for you.
Oh yeah, well I wore Birkenstocks with socks in the winter. And I wore a poncho. A real poncho, not a Sears poncho.
And I wore a poncho. A real poncho, not a Sears poncho.
I had an ironic response all ready to escalate here, but actually, I'll set that aside, and say how much I love ponchos.
I have/had a poncho myself (it is in storage now) -- well-loved over many, many years of use. When you are a college student and a fire alarm goes off in the middle of a winter's night, a good, big, wool poncho is a thing to be glad off. Works as a coverlet too.
Everyone on this thread are a bunch of dweebs.
Anyone with a limited fashion sense should have at least one T-shirt with some sexual innuendo on it. I didn't even realize they were offensive to some people. They are supposed to be FUNNY.
Graphic T-shirts are one of the key fashion icons of this decade for those who are clueless about style.
Here's one:
http://www.fossil.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=36278
Ah, yes, what would this thread be without the patented, late-in-the-game beating with the downtownlad charm stick. I'm surprised you didn't figure out a way to insult parents as "breeders". We expect better (worse) from you.
"Graphic T-shirts are one of the key fashion icons of this decade for those who are clueless about style."
That's true, to those that are clueless about style, graphic t-shirts would be considered one of the key fashion icons of this decade. Or of 1978. Or something.
It's not that they're offensive, it's that they're juvenile (which is why such things are attractive to 13 year olds, hence the need for this discussion). I know it's hard for a perpetual Peter Pan such as yourself to comprehend, but some of us like being grown-ups sometimes.
downtownlad:http://www.fossil.com/jump.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&itemID=36278
T-shirt for 20 USD? You must be kidding me. That's an economic argument for dress codes right there.
I had uniforms in middle and high school. No big deal. If you need to buy 20 dollar cotton T's to express yourself, you need to find a better way to express yourself.
Personally, I say let the kids do what they want. The public schools are shot to hell anyways.
Anyone with a limited fashion sense should have at least one T-shirt with some sexual innuendo on it.
Does that mean people whose fashion sense is NOT limited don't have to own one? :)
Seriously, though, I'm in my thirties. A guy in his thirties with a "Dr. Zog's Sex Wax" t-shirt is never, ever going to get laid.
I see that Palladian is still infatuated with me.
And no - T-shirts were not fashionable in the 1970's.
$20 is cheap for a T-shirt. The good ones cost at least $70. And no - children can't afford the good ones. It's the wealthy adults who are wearing them.
http://revolveclothing.com/productpages/EDHA-MS105.jsp
Of course you have to be in shape to wear a proper fitted T-shirt, so it would be unusual for those who aren't fit to know anything about them.
Of course you can't wear your $100 T-shirt unless you have $300 jeans to pair them with.
http://revolveclothing.com/productpages/ANTI-MJ18.jsp
Of course New York was way ahead of the curve on this whole fashion movement, as anyone who has been to Williamsburg could have told you.
Here's a story from 2003 about T-shirts that had the word "fuck" in them and sole for $80 back then.
http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2003/07/01/courtney/index.html
But getting back to the subject at hand, the answer is not to ban t-shirts.
The answer is to ban public schools.
"I see that Palladian is still infatuated with me."
Don't flatter yourself, Mary. You love to appear in comments threads, show your butt, and see who bites. I can't resist, because I like being mean to you, though I do regret stroking your flacid little ego.
T-shirts are for home wear or for under actual clothes. Adults should really avoid them, since they generally make adults look slovenly and underdressed. I know they are popular with the perpetual adolescents of the urban gym-going gay male "community". If you want to go through life looking like you just stumbled out of "Splash", I suppose that's a matter of personal choice.
You really are clueless Palladian. I'm not being insulting, but when it comes to fashion - you are just making a mockery of yourself.
Just go to any trendy restaurant in the city and you will see guys (mostly straight) wearing expensive jeans and expensive T-shirts.
Don't be bitter just because you can't pull this fashion thing off.
And here's a guy rocking an awesome T-shirt in the latest issue of Vogue.
http://men.style.com/fashion/style_notes/021706
And no - this won't be fashionable forever. But it's foolish to say that it's not in fashion now.
And I got very annoyed when people say that only adolescents can be trendy.
Give me a break.
Teenagers can't afford trendy clothes. Most of them are absolutely clueless when it comes to fashion and style.
It's adults, who have actual jobs and earn real money, who can actually afford to be fashionable.
Unless the style happens to be something like grunge - when anyone who shops at Wal-mart can then be trendy. But I'm sure Palladian was screaming in 1991 that flannel wasn't trendy and that only lumberjacks should have worn it.
Time for bed - the one time I REFUSE to wear an undershirt.
You're the clueless one, dear. Why should one follow fashion? For a self-professed libertarian, you seem awfully enamoured of a collectivist thing like being "fashionable". Go on, lad, be a rebel! Wear something nice for a change! As for some guy "rocking" an "awesome" t-shirt (nice, adolescent language from an adolescent mind), those guys all look like street-level drug dealers, or more correctly, parasitic borgeoise in street pusher drag. It speaks of laziness, nihilism, childishness, bad habits and shallowness. You want some guys "rocking" some "awesome" clothes? I just came across these gents while doing some research today. Give me impractical top hats and a walking stick over an ironic t-shirt and a knit cap any day. This is fashion, t-shirts are underwear.
Johnny Nucleo, to Derve: But you pay taxes so that means you are an adult, so I have to say, your theories of educating and managing kids - basically short, dumb humans who tend to behave like maniacs - are so hippy-dippy that I think you must be pulling our leg.
If you read upthread, Derve professes to be the parent of more than one teenager. He even mentioned that one of his kids is "behind a grade," as if that had any relevance to this conversation. (Way to knock down the kid, Derve! Since when do you care about arbitrary grade assignments, anyway?)
Apparently, he's serious about all this -- why else stoop to making personal attacks? Yet he holds himself out as a paragon of parenting virtue. Hopefully he's of the "do as I say, not as I do" school.
Holy cats! 12 new posts and 9 of them are from downtownlad? Has he finally cut out the middle man and started arguing with himself?
And here's a guy rocking an awesome T-shirt in the latest issue of Vogue.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen -- for only $300, you too could look like you still shop at thift stores. For only $50 more, you can get the "rocking" version that smells like a genuine homeless person! ($75 extra for 'phat').
I go to a school where a uniform is the policy. I am in grade 11 and I LOVE it! I wake up in the morning, throw on one of my three choices for shirts, as well as my Kilt and sometimes knee socks. There is no rivalry between classmates as to who has the nicer clothes. I think that uniforms make for a more "unified" school - excuse the unintended pun:)
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