It took me twenty minutes this morning to find something to wear to school. "Why?" you ask. It couldn’t be because all my "school" clothes were dirty and I had to find an outfit that was "school appropriate," could it?

It frustrates me that I have to settle on an outfit for school when I have a perfectly good one I adore hanging up in my closet, collecting dust because it’s not "acceptable." It frustrates me that I can’t wear cat-eye contacts or even dye my hair purple (or another interesting color) if I choose to. By forcing us to limit our choices in clothing and attire, the school system is also limiting our valuable freedom of expression.

"Any item of clothing or attire (including, but not limited to contact lenses, colored hair, cosmetics, etc) which distracts the attention of other students from learning will not be permitted." So says the R.C.H.S. Dress Code.

The problem is that too many different types of apparel have been identified as "distracting." A few examples of this include tank tops, short shorts, and any type of hat. We’re also not allowed to put unnatural highlights in our hair, wear contacts that can color our eyes red, purple, or some other "unnatural" color, or wear face-paint (even on days like Halloween!). All of these things are considered "distracting" and could possibly disrupt students’ learning environments.

My question is this: If I’m not allowed to dye my hair an "unnatural" color, then why can I dye my hair black? Several people have dyed their hair black, and it does cause some disturbance for a short while, but then it dies down fairly quickly and people don’t even notice it. It is forgotten. Well, why can’t I dye my hair blue or give myself purple highlights if I choose to? Sure, it’ll cause a distraction at first, but it’ll die down quickly. The student body would find something else to gab about and the new sensation would fade to old news. Same thing with colored contacts. Soon people would be so used to it that it would become a part of my image and it wouldn’t look out of the norm. It would look weird if I wasn’t wearing them.

You see, expressing yourself is a good thing! It’s healthy to express yourself. When people—especially young people—have a chance to express who they are, they become more positive and happy. You could argue that it’s just as easy to express yourself by drawing or singing, but not all of us like to draw or sing. Not all of us are in classes that allow us to express ourselves in these ways, but humans have a need to express themselves—whether it be through singing, writing, drawing, sculpting, painting, or even smiling. So, some of us choose to express ourselves through our clothing, hair, makeup, or jewelry. Why try to restrain us when we we’re just doing what is natural and healthy?

Think about it. If we’re not allowed to express ourselves through our clothing choices, then why not just switch to uniforms? Then we can be totally devoid of clothing freedom and things will be totally bland and unable to express ourselves. We’ll be good and we’ll be undistracted… Except for the protests. Hmm, seems that whatever happens will cause "distractions." Is there any way around it?

Even a small concession on the part of the administration would be a nice thing to see. I would even settle for being able to wear torn jeans that don’t violate the dress code in any other way. At least such a change would be a step in the right direction and allow students to have some small amount of personality. However, that would be a distraction. Again, the school administration is forcing me to limit my choices in clothing and apparel whilst squelching my freedom of expression.