Our Letters

pages have been filled in recent weeks with opinions

about two separate but important issues involving the

Fayette County school system: a $90 million special local

option sales tax referendum for new school construction

and a stricter dress code for students.

The dialogue continues on

this and following pages. By the time this appears in

print, the local board of education will have voted on

accepting or watering down the very reasonable dress

rules proposed by a large committee of system staff

members, parents and interested students.

Our opinion on the

penny-added SPLOST will wait, but we want to take our

stand in support of and alongside the board of education

and the School Safety Committee, which came up with the

dress code recommendations.

If anything, we stand

four-square in favor of even tougher restrictions than

those presented to the board for approval. Since there

seem to be so few who want to give this board credit for

anything, consider this our public kudos for a group of

beleaguered citizen volunteers who want the best for our

children.

To the facts now, absent

the often empty-headed emotionalism that substitutes for

rational thought in much public debate nowadays.

Schools exist to educate

children. Education consists of facts, or should.

Children lack mature judgment. Adults are supposed to

teach children how to leave childhood behind so that they

may become civilized, productive, law-abiding

citizen-adults.

Schools are a critical

way-station for children on their way to chronological

adulthood. Teenagers are still children. Once upon a

time, adults knew that, and so did kids. Our rational

thought processes as a society have regressed in recent

decades.

It's easy - and often

destructive - to cry, "It's my right,"

when confronted with dress codes and school rules. Where

are those who say, "Yes, sir," and "Yes,

ma'am," and shoulder their societal and cultural

responsibilities? Answer: Fewer are visible than ever in

our memory.

To the young, dress is a

big issue. Why? Because it's "their" dress,

different from adult dress. Many teens object to

"uniforms." But, most kids already are wearing

uniforms - they all look the same. The difference:

the kids make the choice, not the adults.

Does any adult seriously

believe that's a good thing - that choices can be

divorced from consequences? Have you tried getting a

decent job with pierced eyebrows and tongue rings and

ratty jeans? Is the business world going to change its

dress code to accommodate "self-expressing"

teens? Why do we delay teaching them that teens must

accommodate themselves to the real world?

Responsibilities must trump

rights, as most adults realize. These days, many adults

want to give immature teenagers most of the

"rights" of adults with few if any of the

attendant responsibilities that must go hand in hand with

the "rights" if civilization is to continue.

"Getting back to the

basics" must include a renewed sense of individual

responsibility, instead of a poisonous demand for more

"civil rights" divorced from any sense of civil

responsibilities.

"Self-expression"

in dress among the young has just about reached the

limits of civilized tolerance. You see 14-year-olds in

school hallways wearing stuff that strippers once

considered their province. You see age-old teen rebellion

elevated to a self-referential religion that demands

acceptance from those who ought to know better.

It's time for adults to say

to the immature: "We know better. You need rules

because you lack mature judgment. Someday you will be

mature, but you are not showing it today. Self-expression

is another name for hollow self-indulgence, and you don't

need any further lessons in how to indulge yourself. Here

are the rules. Follow them."

We adults had and have

dress codes. We didn't and won't die from them. Neither

will our aggrieved young. And they will be learning an

adult lesson: You often don't get your own way.

The school system is right

to seek consistent, system-wide enforcement of a

reasonable, civilized dress code, determined by adults

who know better than children. We support those efforts

with enthusiasm.

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