Gonzales High School educators seem to believe that outfitting their students like prisoners is good training for American society in the twenty-first century. They have purchased the jumpsuits for violators of the school dress code. The biggest surprise is that the school was not named after former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales but the Texas town itself.
A school official stated that it was “worth a try” to reinforce the district’s conservative values.
Of course, the kids have already told reporters that they are violating the dress code just to wear the cool prison garb. After all, Paris Hilton wore one, click here.
For the school’s regs on earning a jumpsuit, click here.
Besides the outfits are perfect for the new classes on “Shank Construction 101,” “License-Plate Shop” and “Home-cell Economics.” In the last class, the kids learn to make delicious mac and cheese on a radiator and how to use a ground up chicklets to make a type of prison soda.
Well done, Gonzales High School school board, well done.
For the full story, click here.
My child wears a uniform, and if she went to a school that proposed jump suits for any offense, I would take her out of that school system.
It is just plain tacky to require students to wear prison garb…
A boy was interviewed on NBC news who sported an orange mowhawk. He said he and his friends were going to violate rules anyway.
I bet his parents are proud.
I decided to see what it’s like to have no conscience for awhile; I became a Republican/Conservative. I see the appeal; life is much easier when you don’t care about anyone else.
zakimar, you are becoming dangerously close to inflaming your audience
– just like Bartlebee did.
You are not contributing anything productive.
You are just ‘on it’ – except you are on it with with America.
We ‘get it’!
We ‘got it’ LONG before you showed up.
So what?
This is a great idea. Since most of these students are minorities, this is Texas and Bush has made getting a job or a home a little more difficult, most of these people will end up in jail. So the school is doing these students a favor by getting them used to their uniform on the “inside”. Now if these students had a chance of making something of themselves (were Caucasian, parents had money, lived in a decent state) I would say this was inappropriate.
This story made http://detentionslip.org! Voted #1 for crazy education news. It’s got some hilarious comments on this headlines.
NCLB is a disaster. The thing I notice though is that many of the people who work at this school, (again, not all), are authoritarian. I suppose that makes sense as they are hired by the same people. In some ways we are not too different from the TX schools. There’s all sorts of “end time” signs that people put up in their yard urging repentance and I heard my neighbor yell, “be obediant to my will” to her son. My other neighbor helpfully informed me that their electricity did not go out because they were favored by god. I guess if you mean god sited the transformer before her house then god did “favor her”. It was the first I had heard of god being on the planning board for Toledo Edison. I wonder how much he makes. I don’t suppose that many cities have god on the utility’s board-pretty cool huh?
Jill,
Many teacher have no choice but to “teach to the Test” because the No child left behind Act forces the States to test and to publish the scores. Until we get rid of the NCLB mentality, teaching to the test will be necessary. A win for Obama will increase the chances of the NCLB being dismissed.
Chris,
We should all wear jumpsuits for one day to protest this “prison planet” govt. I’m pretty certain any child’s attempt at irony would be lost on these people.
Gyges,
I’m glad you had teachers who really cared. I bet most of us did and that saved our butt. I tutor in my nearby gradeschool. It’s supposed to be a good school. From what I see it is a place for rote, brute force “teaching to the test”. Some of the kids get sick and throw up before these fucking tests. I feel very badly for them. They are smart kids with a lot of heart. They deserve much, much better.
Jill
What I want to know is if wearing your own prison jumpsuit is a violation of the dress code.
But why bother. The administrators probably don’t have the intelligence to recognize the absurdity of making somebody wear a prison jumpsuit for violating the dress code by wearing a prison jumpsuit.
Second question: how many jump suits do they have? What happens if the entire senior class, for instance, decides to violate the dress code once day?
Jill,
After Elementary School I didn’t really run into any teacher that was set on conformity until I got to college. To be honest most of my high-school teachers and administrators were too incompetent to have any sort of agenda. The rest were all fantastic teachers who were doing as close to the whole movie “teaching the hopeless inner city kids” thing as you can do in Colorado.
My junior high thought the world would end if we wore jeans. Amazingly the world is still here.
It’s clear that schools want non-thinking conformists (for the most part). Even schools that don’t have a code still want mental conformity from their students.
Why not have a real discussion about clothing? It’s a fascinating historical, sociological and anthropological topic. Why did the U.S. have sumpturary laws? Why does what we wear signify what it does and to whom? Why wear clothes at all? Designing clothes based on another culture’s understanding of them would make a great art project. Understanding why we buy the things we do buy could help kids to make purchases, OR NOT, that are for them, not corporations.
And get that paddle!
My high-school had a zero tolerance police in place for my last couple of years. To date myself that was right after Columbine. They started to enforce a fairly strict dress code, and started searching our cars and lockers. I knew (and briefly dated) one girl in my class who was suspended because she had a pocket knife in a first aid kit in her car. She was a certified life guard, as was someone who was in contention to be Valedictorian. This new policy was put in place to “help create a productive learning environment”
Meanwhile: We had English teachers who never had us write an essay. We had a German teacher who had a nervous break down and would have cut all of one kids hair off if a gym teacher hadn’t been around to pull him off of the student. We had biology textbooks from the 50s.
Kids wearing wallet chains, “gang colors” (they never bothered to tell us which colors we weren’t allowed to wear), and skirts or shorts above the knee were the problem though.
After three violations with a required jumpsuit, the student dress code will be treated as disruptive behavior and/or defiance of school authority. The campus administrators will use other form of disciplinary action for repeaters in addition to the parent escorting the student and in dress code upon return to school.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 July 2008 )
May I recommend the paddle?
whoolie:
“A school board official said it’s “worth a try” because it’s a way to keep the district’s conservative values intact.”
*************************
Reminds me of the Midas commercial where the yokel says “I’ll take a whack at it.”
No doubt about the curriculum in this hi skool…
“A school board official said it’s “worth a try” because it’s a way to keep the district’s conservative values intact.”
High schoolers being high schoolers it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the jumpsuits became status symbols.
.
Mespo,
The Scarlet letter is a very good example of the dunce cap mentality that is at play here. From one who was subjected to many similar techniques by the good Nuns many years ago, they don’t work and they are humiliating. I realize that the proponents of these tactics believe if you humiliate them publicly they will comply with the rules. Once again, they don’t work and they just make most of the recipients even more inclined to buck authority. The Nuns did these kind of things in the 50’s and early 1960’s. What is Texas’ excuse to be using them in the 21st century? The answer is Stupidity.
The Scarlet Letter is back. I knew these neo-Purtians would get back to basics.
Dundar,
I am nominating you to be the first to wear these ridiculous jumpsuits. I thought the days of the dunce camp mentality were long over. But, then I remembered that this is in Texas! Just one more reason why I am glad that I don’t live in Texas. I think the school officials should be the ones wearing the prison jumpsuits.
Works for me. Sounds like a good idea that is worth a try. I don’t know why people are against trying something….