Dress vs. Pants Delimma

After discussing my “campaign” of allowing girls at my school to have the choice to wear pants with other teachers at my school, I found out that there is this possibility, but because not everyone who are in a environment aligns with the organization’s true missions and intentions, or whose experiences allow them to believe what is being conveyed to them truly deep down, I have had teachers who support me and who have expressed slight disinterest in this initiative because they grew up in a British environment themselves so they are being “brainwashed” by the ideology already. However, this has made me realized the importance of “if only you follow that you will change”. This was the issue of my approach to things at first—I had a lot of ideas, a lot of energy, and a lot of passion. However, because of this, I made a lot of mistakes when trying to implement this idea as I was not knowledgeable of how my environment worked and how I should go about things, which in turn, slowed down progress. So it was only when I slowed down, paid attention to what I was doing, that I was able to push things forward and make the changes that I want to make.

That said, when I talked to the other teacher at my school about that idea, she said that she grew up in a Catholic all girls school, so they wore dresses all the time, so when she graduated, she refused to wear a dress for years as she felt rebellious after graduating from school. However, now, as her thoughts on clothing has matured even more, she decided to wear what she wants and not set rules for herself just because of her experiences. That is the relationship I want my schools’ girls to bear in mind when they make choices of what to wear every day—they make their choice depending on themselves, not from what their parents or organization tells them. This is true equity. Even though I might not be able to remove the whole uniform system now, small changes and footsteps can help lead to the eventual change, it is all about patience and strategy.