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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank
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To: one_less who wrote (59957)9/26/2002 4:29:45 PM
From: The Philosopher  Read Replies (2) of 82486
 
The schools, even if they are not designed to (and they usually are), educate students every bit as much in societal behavioral expectations as in the 3Rs.

(Aside: the one time I was on a small team to completely redesign the curriculum for a 200+ year old traditiional private school, the first principal I put forward was that the one thing you can be most likely to be sure that the students will learn is how to survive within the system. So you have to design the system so that survivial in it teaches what you want to teach.)

What you are suggesting, it seems to me, is that a basic social norm (here my discussion with Neo pokes its head in) is conformity of behavior and discouragement of individuality. I don't think it's realistic to say to students "we encourage you to be creative in art class and in writing class but prohibit you from being creative in your choice of clothing." Some people care very little about their clothes. I'm one -- I am totally unadventurous in my dress. But for other people, their appearance is very bound up with their self-image. If you force them to conform in dress, you tell them that their creativity is not valued.

Clearly there are limits, as there are limits to what they can write in creative writing class. But I, personally, am more afraid of giving our schools the power to force conformity that I am of dealing with the instances where creativity and personal initative may have gone too far.
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