UK IX: This Economy Will Self-Destruct In...

[Neon Ignition]

MPs should not bring babies into Commons, says cross-party review | Women in politics | The Guardian

->Open Spoiler<-

The most obvious decision of an:

UK government to scrap European law protecting special habitats | Environment | The Guardian
That's how you deal with the housing crisis!

[Neon Ignition]

Boys told they can wear skirts but not shorts at school in hot weather (msn.com)
When a school makes a call with no real understanding of what they're aiming to achieve

[Yakumo]

Boys told they can wear skirts but not shorts at school in hot weather (msn.com)
When a school makes a call with no real understanding of what they're aiming to achieve

That's just ****ing stupid. And before anyone brings up the kilt, no, that's has national and cultural significance. A bloody skirt does not. Madness. Just add shorts to the list.

[Neon Ignition]

I don't know why shorts aren't a default option, they've been used in schools for decades internationally and cover up enough too. Easy option to include as standard for any gender.

[Asura]

Boys told they can wear skirts but not shorts at school in hot weather (msn.com)
When a school makes a call with no real understanding of what they're aiming to achieve

The operative phrase here is "start with why".

The "why" of school uniform is frequently misunderstood. People say that they're meant to be about equality, so kids don't get bullied for wearing cheaper clothes/so parents don't have to think or expend a lot of money to clothe their kids at school.

But from my own experience, that's not how teachers see it; they treat it as a point of discipline. It's supposed to somehow prepare people for the world of work - a world many teachers have never visited, serving a system that presumably thinks the students are being prepped to be shoved in a time machine and sent back to the 1950s the moment they turn 16.

And even if it was a cost thing, some uniforms are really expensive anyway, which kills that point stone dead.

At the school I taught at in Japan, the kids' summer uniform was a branded t-shirt, sweater, pair of shorts or tracksuit bottoms and a generic pair of white sneakers. Cheap, informal, comfortable, rapid to wash, non-iron. Same for any gender. The kids did have a formal uniform but it was gradually being worn less and less, with the intent that it might one day not exist. I truly think that schools should work to this approach, because I don't think uniforms are entirely without value, but I do think that the days of making kids wear formal attire every day needs to come to an end.

[Hirst]

Most of the school uniform thing in this country is a deliberate collusion between the school and the "approved uniform supplier" to force parents to stump up for things that can't readily be obtained on the open market - because they've put school branding on it and/or made it weird colours that nobody sells.

This is then enforced by teachers, some of whom can be absolutely obsessive about enforcing petty rules. The main one for us were trousers, which had to be a specific shade of dark grey. They couldn't be too light or too dark (subjective) and the teachers would take great delight in sending kids home for it. A complete waste of time, having trousers in a specific shade of grey or "the right shoes" didn't stop half my class becoming teenage pregnancies, persistent truants or heroin addicts.

I remember another stupid rule involving blazers - you weren't allowed to take them off unless the teacher decided it was warm enough.

[Asura]

I remember another stupid rule involving blazers - you weren't allowed to take them off unless the teacher decided it was warm enough.

This is the **** I'm talking about.

For context, not many schools in our area wore blazers (I mean, not many public schools in the UK do, anymore - and by "public" I mean public, i.e. paid for by the taxpayer, not the daft definition that somehow puts "public school" on the signs of many private schools).

I still remember when we got a letter sent home to parents when I was about 12, saying, in a really passive-aggressive way:

"Parents are reminded that students are to be clothed in school uniform from the moment they leave for school in the morning, including their blazers and school shoes. They are to remain in uniform at school, then to wear the uniform until the moment they arrive at home after school, with the understanding that they are to proceed immediately home when school is over, with no detours.

As an additional reminder, sweaters and jumpers are not coats, and must not be worn as such. This deliberate attempt to circumvent the school's uniform policy while travelling to-and-from school will not be tolerated.

Finally, the school uniform does not include a mobile phone. Parents are to understand that the school has an interest to control the information that goes in and out of school during the day, and as a result, we do not consider a mobile phone to be an appropriate item for a pupil to have on their person, in their locker or their bag."

Not exact words but believe me, it's really close. I still remember us reading the letter on the bus home and laughing at just how ridiculous it all was. We had a teacher that year who was ejected from the school for drunkenness, RE teachers who were saying AIDS was a divine plague on "men who can't be bothered to go out and find a woman" and the library was simply axed because the school didn't have the space. But no jumpers!!

[Brad]

At
My school uniform was just set colours of shirt jumper and trousers so the rich kids wore Pringle jumpers and farrah trousers and poor kids had elasticated waist Woolworths crap so the make everyone the same to avoid bullying didn’t work.

[fishbowlhead]

Ahhhh school, what a massive waste of my entire early years, i give it so little thought i sometimes forget i even went.

[Asura]

At
My school uniform was just set colours of shirt jumper and trousers so the rich kids wore Pringle jumpers and farrah trousers and poor kids had elasticated waist Woolworths crap so the make everyone the same to avoid bullying didn’t work.

Yep, same problem but from the other perspective.

Someone needs to sit down with a headteacher and ask them why the students wear uniforms. Then you ask if the uniform, at present, really achieves any of those things; the answer to this will probably be "no", which just means that the school has that particular uniform policy out of a fetish for the concept of uniforms and not for any practical reason.

[Hirst]

This is the **** I'm talking about.

When you become an adult and look back at school, you figure out that some teachers are absolutely nuts and are determined to have some kind of authority even if it's the most insane or petty thing. And some of them, I genuinely think it's just because they get a kick out of being mean.

In my primary school - I swear down this is the truth - we were banned from stirring the jam into the rice pudding/semolina to make it pink. There was no reason to it. You just weren't allowed and if you did it, no playtime. It shaped me as a human being (badly).

[Asura]

When you become an adult and look back at school, you figure out that some teachers are absolutely nuts and are determined to have some kind of authority even if it's the most insane or petty thing. And some of them, I genuinely think it's just because they get a kick out of being mean.

Yeah; admittedly as a kid, you accept the reality that's presented to you. I think for many, their teachers are the adults people spend the most time with apart from their parents, unless you happen to live with grandparents or something.

I had plenty of teachers who had attended school, attended uni, trained as a teacher and started teaching at a school, as if they'd never been more than a hundred yards away from a classroom for their whole lives. And those were the weird ones. Some seemingly who had a terrible time of it the first time around, who seemed to want to make it your problem, some who had maybe tried to "go out into the world" and, upon encountering hardship, had returned to school, and finally the worst ones - those who probably peaked at school, then left to discover they weren't actually hot **** and had decided just to stay.

Not all my teachers were like this. Some were interesting, worldly, well-adjusted people. But some were defintely like this.

[fishbowlhead]

When you become an adult and look back at school, you figure out that some teachers are absolutely nuts and are determined to have some kind of authority even if it's the most insane or petty thing. And some of them, I genuinely think it's just because they get a kick out of being mean.

In my primary school - I swear down this is the truth - we were banned from stirring the jam into the rice pudding/semolina to make it pink. There was no reason to it. You just weren't allowed and if you did it, no playtime. It shaped me as a human being (badly).

You think thats bad. My parents sent to to a private school for about 3-4 years, they used to ask the kids how much their parents earned and would then up the term fees based on how much they thought they could get away with. That particular school was also full of Christian nut job teachers who would rack my left hand with a ruler when i was writing and proclaim they wont have the devils writing in their classes.

This all went down as well as you can imagine with my parents who pulled me out pretty quickly after finding out, my old man finally snapped when the headmaster told them he doesn’t need useless kids like me in his school anyway, he became very familiar with the wood grain of his desk when his head met it.

[Yakumo]

I have fond memories of my senior school in the UK, cardinal heenan it was called. Still going now.
We wore uniforms but there was no BS about having to keep **** on if it was too hot. We also had a summer uniform which was a blue polo shirt and shorts or light trousers. I actually dreaded non-uniform day. All the other kids would be wearing their latest addids or Nike and there I was with some no name crap like Pony. Yeah, having 4 boys and a girl really meant my parents were quite poor back in the day.
Basically, I guess it is down to the school. In my experience the uniform was a good thing. It made me feel comfortable and less intimidated wearing a suit for the first time during a job interview. I remember my mate saying he felt so wrong when he wore his first suit.
I actually dreded

[charlesr]

New episode of Tory is a Molester is out

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/30/tory-deputy-chief-whip-resigns-after-embarrassing-myself-and-others?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other