2012-08-27, 08:18 PM
Flonne Wrote:Besides, I have a Bachelor's degree and it hasn't done pomegranate for me even with a hell of a lot of effort on my part to find a job, whereas my cousin who dropped out in (sorry, right after now that I think of it) middle school now has 8 years of work experience, his own house, a nice car, and zero debt. His parents are very poor by the way, so that's not where he got the money; he made it all himself. Made stupid decisions along the way too, but arguably less stupid than actually staying all the way through school, if you look at where he is now.
Good, we're happy for your brother for pulling through the crunch times, and we feel your pain. But I think this is hardly relevant to the issue on haircuts and uniform code. As we said, universities don't have a uniform code, and sure you can fail this national examination and go find yourself a job, but it's worse than tough to do so. If you're wondering, in this part of the world, we use grades as the first sieve. Even if you have 10 years of experience on your sleeve in a professional environment, you're expected to improve yourself to match others (I'm talking about being employees; employers have a rather different story). No I correct myself - you MUST improve yourself. This is the norm. Bill Gates or whoever else billionares who didn't go through formal schooling, those are examples of success stories (of employers!) that are not realistic to attempt. That's why I said, start arguing clearly about whether a haircut (or rather, the uniform code) is necessary for your education, which in your case it's clearly no!
Options? The teacher didn't give options, so the teacher was in the wrong. Period. Other options at the national/school level: not in the student's control i.e. the options should have been taken by the parent. There won't be options like "the school could have chosen not to go by these rules". Also, in this part of the world, parents are mandated by law to send their children to primary school unless they opt for home or private schooling, and the percentage of people opting for the latter is vanishingly small (but present). Only home schooling wouldn't have a uniform code (obviously!). So you are therefore required by law to take the exam (what you get later isn't critical to this discussion). Ridiculous? That's fine because it's kinda strange too, though not very different from everyone going through A-levels in a country (although not by law). Authoritarian? Hello where are we from? You like it or you hate it, or you leave it (alone).
Forcing anyone is a bad way to do things, sure, and obviously the opposite is false too. If law and rules = forcing to you, then I think it's kinda hard for you to live in this part of the world (if you were even considering to do so) because it feels so extreme for you. But let's put it this way: we live in a game, we live by the rules. So the most obvious example for me is mandatory conscription: one cannot choose not to enter the army. No reasons need or should be said. Is that (ridiculous and) authoritarian? Yes. Is the comment on rules and options ridiculous? I actually think so, but that's just me.
I'm going to put this in a rather bad way: I don't crave that kind of near-absolute freedom you all (in the West) have. I don't think many of us in this part of the world would either. Call it indoctrination by birth (i.e. culture), but in all honesty it's not essential for living, and its not suitable for us here. If anything, you lose something and you gain something, but which is more, which is more important, is up for debate.
/edit: And we should talk about the teacher and the necessity of haircuts and uniforms, not about what's ridiculous in schools or in countries from the eyes of others.
Hadriel