Where is this health and safety thing going to end?
Ronald Bailey | March 21, 2007, 3:33pm
That's the very reasonable question being asked by a parent who has been told that his kids have to wear clip on ties to school. The Daily Express reports,
A HEADMASTER has banned his pupils from wearing their knotted ties because he thinks they are a health and safety risk.
John Peckham has ordered the 1,500 children to wear the clip-on variety instead.
Those who ignore the rule and turn up with the traditional tie have been warned they will be sent home.
Last night the move was slammed as “political correctness gone mad and barmy” by parents and education experts. They say children have worn school ties for decades without any reported injuries.
But Mr Peckham claims pupils could suffer serious injury from trailing ties in science and woodwork lessons or from having their ties pulled by classmates.
School uniforms made of bubble wrap are next.
See my column on "The Culture of Fear" here.
Complete Daily Express article here.
Disclosure: I own no stocks in apparel companies and just sold my small holding of stock in a retail footwear chain (at a loss I regret to report). Furthermore, I rarely wear ties. I usually wear T-shirts that I buy on my various travels.
kevrob | March 21, 2007, 4:51pm | #
I had to wear a tie as a student for 12 years. In H.S. we could wear what we wanted, but in grades 1-8 we either had a clip-on or a bow-tie attached to a neckband that hooked around back. I never saw an accident like that, and taking off a knotted tie, leaving it knotted, and hanging it in your locker or stuffing it in your pocket was a skill easily mastered.
Shop aprons are another solution. Can't have wood chips and the like soiling the broadcloth, can we?
This bit...
“We also feel it is smarter because older children will not wear clip-on ties in a casual way.
“This is in line with places like Marks & Spencer, the police and the armed forces.”
...betrays where the HM is coming from. He can't stand seeing his Little Gentleman with their cravats loosened, as they kick around the football or sneak off for a fag.
BTW, school unis only mitigate, not eliminate, social cues from clothing. The "rich kids" wear newer and better accessories, especially the girls. Maybe if you are a Bush attending Andover you can wear your older brother's old school blazer and not lose any style points, but at our parish elementary hand-me-downs were a sign that you weren't flush. Some of the "rich kids" even removed the school crest from their jackets and had it sewn one of the same color, but better material, then the ones we all bought from the school's designated supplier.
The girls figured out ways to compete on the field of fashion, varying the styles of their blouses, shoes, hair, handbags, jewelry (when allowed), makeup(w.a.), etc. We boys may not have been sufficiently aware of the rules to tell who was where in the standings, but even I could tell that Miss Linda D*., a blonde goddess whose Daddy was a flush plumbing contractor, was a league leader. Besides being naturally gorgeous, she sported a winter tan after Christmas break, what looked like diamond earrings, a gold cross around her neck, and drove to school in a new Mercury Cougar once she turned 16. If it had turned out that her plaid skirt had been altered by a tailor, it wouldn't have surprised me. There were girls, just as pretty, who didn't dress as sharp, and the guys who came from money often went out of their way to look as scuzzy as possible, if only because they hated wearing a uniform.
Kevin
(Who was known for wearing sweater vests under his blazer, long before
Family Ties hit the airwaves. I caught cold easily, and the nuns kept the thermostats turnded down during the Oil Shock years.)
*Oddly enough, not a big crush. A girl like that didn't seem real enough to get worked up over, even though she could have been sent by Central Casting in response to a request for a Teenage Cheerleader Beauty Queen.
