Seminar on School Uniforms

1. What is your opinion about students being required to wear a uniform to school?
2. How would our school be different if students wore uniforms to school?
3. If all the students in Colorado had been wearing uniforms, how would this terrible incident have been different?

Sharing with your partner, listen as the teacher reads "School Uniforms" by William F. Buckley, Jr. from The National Review. Then take three minutes to review it silently.

1. What, according to the author, are the benefits of school uniforms for all students?
2. How does the public school teacher feel about school uniforms?
3. What kind of school is Cardinal Hayes High School in New York City?
4. What do you think the phrase "your dress bespeaks hierarchy" means?
5. Who are the ‘chaos-defenders’ mentioned in the last line of the next to the last PP?
6. According to the sociologist quoted in the last paragraph, what is the effect of one broken window in a building?

Questions of inference:

7. According to this author, how do uniforms create a disciplined environment?
8. According to this author, how do uniforms make more students go to college?
9. What kind of activity might be stopped by uniforms, according to this author?

Questions of opinion:

10. Has this article changed your mind any about the effects of school uniforms?
11. If we had to wear uniforms, would it have a greater affect on grades or on behavior?
12. If uniforms would have little or no positive effect on student achievement, what would?
13. If uniforms would have little or no positive effect on student achievement, what would?

Questions of creative response:

14. If we had to wear uniforms, suggest a dress style and color that would be most acceptable to the student body.
15. If we had to wear uniforms, write an explanation that would convince the students that this policy is for their benefit in the long run.

Finally ~ for an excellent article opposing school uniforms, read "School Uniforms: An ‘Unfashionable’ Dissent" by Dennis L. Evans.