LOOK AT WHAT SHE’S WEARING! I’ve said this to myself often, impressed by colorful ethnic dress. But because I haven’t gone up to the person to compliment her, I’ve missed a chance to get to know someone new and probably learn something about a culture I’m not familiar with. Too often we miss such chances. People from ethnic backgrounds different from our own are all around us. We can grab the opportunity by sitting with them at church or asking to join their table at the Fellowship that follows. We can engage them in conversation at a party, during work breaks, before and after meetings. Where we are gathered gives us subjects to talk about (the meeting topic or a critique of what the boss said or a new place to shop in the area). Our kids have been doing this since 2002 nationally and locally at “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” If we follow their lead we’ll enrich each other’s lives and build a stronger human community.
Tag Archive for dress
Kids’ Shame; Education’s Friend
A Florida girl was pulled from class and reprimanded for wearing a too-short skirt, violating the school’s dress code. To continue going to class, she was made to change into what her mom calls a “shame suit”: over-sized sweat pants and a bright yellow tee shirt, both saying “Dress Code Violation.” Feeling humiliated, she asked to call her mom, who became as upset as her daughter.
The school claims that this was her choice since she could have taken in-school suspension or had her parents called to bring her more appropriate clothing. The girl claimed no knowledge of those other choices, even though they’re written into the dress code that every student and parent should have read.
I can’t help wondering if there was a fourth choice. In my more permissive high-school-teaching days, I remember watching parents drop off fresh-scrubbed kids dressed in nice outfits. Once on campus, these girls met up with friends. Together, they went to their locker to retrieve “school clothes”–short skirts/shorts, tight/skimpy tops, jeans two sizes too small, etc. And the make-up bag. When they emerged from the bathroom, ready for a day at school, their appearance had drastically changed. The clothes they’d worn to school (and would be put back on–and faces scrubbed–before heading home) spent the day in their lockers.
The fourth option, then, might have been a trip to the girl’s locker and a quick change.
A lesson I’d learned back then, as I vainly tried teaching English to teenaged males with their tongues hanging out and their eyes firmly fixed on what the girls had on display, was that a reasonable dress code is Education’s Friend.
99 with a Loving Heart
Here’s a woman who plans to use her abilities for as long as she’s able. She’s 99 years old and plans to make a dress each and every day for a child. See the video at http://www.wimp.com/dressneed.
[Thanks to Linda Younts for sending me this.]