Blazer or No

Why do Australian children wear a range of different uniform styles?

Why do they wear uniforms at all? And why are they so smart?

Some schools enforce a uniform, some offer uniforms as an option, and some schools have no dress code other than you turn up dressed.

Many Private schools and some Public schools have strict and high standards of dress with their uniforms, including senior levels wearing blazers, collared shirts and ties.

This higher standard is a legacy of Australia's British past, namely the Upper Class, copying off the "Public" and Grammar schools and Ivy League Colleges attended by the privileged, the elite classes and the rich.

What is a higher standard of dress? Compare attending a wedding or addressing the UN or the Queen in your shorts and a singlet, with wearing a tuxedo or suit with tie.

Nuff said.

This higher standard of school dress is just a tiny part of the concept of a higher standard of everything. It is part of the unwritten laws of what it means to be a higher level of person: sophisticated, civilised and refined as a member of the shaved monkey community.

The differences create Classes of social status, which indicate and create opportunities.

Dressing at a higher standard is one way to BE a higher standard of person.

Alongside dress, we have other outwardly facing expressions of our higher place in society: bearing, posture, gait, speech, manners, behaviour and appearance in all public settings.

Behind the apppearance are higher standards of thinking: ego, moral values, world view, self-respect.

Politicians, diplomats, businessmen, salesmen and other sections of society use these higher standards, especially dress, for additonal reasons than appearing elite, rich or privileged. They dress at a higher standard to achieve certain goals based on the affect they wish to have on onlookers: especially the goal of being taken seriously, being thought of as smart, powerful, well-educated, impressive, looked up to, respected, revered, trusted, believed, followed.

And whether we like it or not, these impressions are felt by onlookers just by a higher standard of dress. It says something about the person that is intuitively impressive.

Your outwardly expressed standards tell people about your level of civilisation, refinement and sophistication. It earns respect, disrespect or indifference by compulsion.

A well-dressed man is treated and perceived differently by onlookers from a scruffy, poorly-dressed man. The difference is in level of respect, trust, authority, power.

We all know, how you look affects how people think of you and treat you.

This fact of Human Nature is law-like and has versions in every part of the world.

We don't attend job interviews in our trackie dacks and the shirt we slept in.

This dress standard is understood at the adult level. But their is patently an issue at the school age level, considering the difference in and the attitudes towards school uniforms.

How do we explain higher standards, class, refinement and sophistication to children?

Children are not so concerned about social status and refinement. But they are concerned about how they look. But how they look is something they believe heartedly should reflect their individuality, their personal self-awareness, and their appearance to their peers.

If given the option, most children would likely abandon smart blazers for personalised civvy clothes. Unless they were as pompous as their parents.

How do we explain to our children why they should wear a smart school uniform?

Should we bother? It's not like they have much choice.

We think we should bother.

We should bother, if we want our children to get a head start on understanding how the world works and not lag behind, finding out only after life-long irrepairable mistakes are made.

We can explain to our children the seemingly pointless and uncomfortable dressing up concept using terms they already understand.

Some people swear in public, pee in public, scuff their feet, talk at volume in quiet places, make a scene, lose their shit and other behaviour.

Surely even children can see that there is a difference between this kind of person and others who don't partake.

Surely we can point to the medieval times of Europe, composed of peasants and their royal rulers.

Closer to home, is the concept teenagers already have of being self-conscious about their appearance. They know from experience how their appearance affects their onlookers and soon after, their own self-worth. They know appearance matters. Pimples, lumps and hair popping out of puberty, being fat or thin, short or tall, having a disfigurement, looking like a Kardashian or Napolean Dynamite etc.

Once they confirm the law of appearance, we can move into the degrees of appearance from peasant Bogan to Princess and President.

And there are degrees across all outward appearances and behaviours we can point to that children can see every day.

So. Kids. There are actual reasons behind why people dress in suits and ties. It's not by accident. There is a practical effect. There is therefore a reason why we have high standards of dress in schools. It's to prepare you for your future. It is to introduce you to the concept of Class: refinement, sophistication and status. It is to warn you how much these things will matter throughout your life.

If you present yourself as a peasant, you will be treated thus.


As ZZ Top put it, Every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man.