Students should wear uniform

90% of English children wear uniform at school

Less than 25% of American kids wear uniform

What about you?
Do you have to wear uniform? Do you like it? Why? Why not?

School
uniform debate
Uniform policies have been on the rise, subject to heated debate in the United States since the late ’90s, when President Clinton suggested that American schools adopt uniforms to improve students’ concentration and cut down on conflict and competition over dress. Not everyone agrees that the problems in American schools can be solved so easily. An American social scientist, David Brunsma, who has studied the subject extensively, concluded that instituting uniform policies did not have any significant impact on student attendance or achievement, but was more “analogous to cleaning and brightly painting a deteriorating building.”
That’s not English
Erin Moore
Give words in bold definitions. Use the dictionary if necessary.
Bill Clinton,
the US president
David Brunsma,
social scientist

Bill Clinton, the US president
David Brunsma,
social scientist
What are Bill Clinton and David Brunsma arguments?
Which of them do find more convincing?

What impact can uniform have on your future life?

Read the passage from Erin Moore’s book «That’s not English».
How does the writer feel about school uniforms? How do they affect the British? Does she support school uniform for kids?
Too much uniform-wearing can have consequences. Those who are indifferent to clothes end up confused about how to dress themselves in mufti. I have a friend whose husband borrows her socks without compunction—they’re the right color, so what’s the difference?
One fashion blogger quipped, while watching the royal wedding, that England ought to have a Ministry of Silly Hats. The peach potty seat Princess Beatrice perched on her head was surely an attention-grabber, but even a cursory look at HELLO! magazine in summer would show it was not wholly unrepresentative of what you’d see at a society wedding or Ladies’ Day at Ascot.
This kind of audacity is one of my favorite things about England. Where an
American might play it safe and go for “appropriate,” the English are bold with their fashion.
Give words in bold definitions. Use the dictionary if necessary.