School rules are there for a purpose. Mainly, I think, it's to
maintain a proper image of Singaporean students. You may think
"what image is there to uphold?" But when you get older, you'll
see... 
Nothing's wrong with having long hair. But having short hair just
makes you look smarter and brighter. Btw I don't mean
smarter/brighter as in cleverer. When you look better, naturally
more girls would want to be seen with you right? And shorter hair
is easier to maintain.
Having everything so uniform in schools is probably also to make
sure that the students don't waste time having to think about what
to wear to school the next day, or how to wear their hair. The time
wasted on this area can be put to better use if it's used on
studying purposes.
School rules are made NOT meant to be broken. As I said, it's there
for a purpose. If you don't like it, don't break it. Compromises
can be made. I come from a school where certain rules which
students felt were rather unreasonable were relaxed. For example,
only school shoes were allowed, but after the change, track shoes
were allowed too, provided they weren't too flashy and only had a
maximum of three permitted colors. Another rule that was changed
was that only blue/black bags were allowed, but now bags that don't
have bright colors are allowed. These compromises have been made
and both students and teachers are happy with them. Isn't that
good?
In my school, we don't have a students' committee, but the
prefectorial board represents the student body. After making those
compromises, the teachers are happy with the new rules and so are
the students, hence they follow them now. I agree with
Puzzle_Siaoz, suggest something to your principal so that students'
views can be voiced and heard.
Quoting Martin Luther King Jr... "Freedom is not free." If students
were allowed to have things their way, think about what's going to
happen. We have such fashionable teenagers in Singapore nowadays,
that if there weren't school rules, the school would probably
become a fashion show venue. Students would only be interested in
outdoing their friends in wearing the latest fashion outfits. Hair
would be dyed in every color of the rainbow, piercings would
probably be seen on many teenagers, on the faces/ears... Many
students, though not all, would probably lose their interest in
pursuing their education.
Having school uniforms is good in a sense that you can identify
who's from which school easily. When getting to know friends
sometimes, it saves you the trouble of asking an additional
question, "Which school are you from?"
Why do you remove your school tag and badge after school ends? Just
because you can use all the vulgarities you want? I think that's
pretty silly. Why for use so much vulgarities when you can use nice
proper English and show people how cultivated you are? I personally
feel that using so much vulgarities is simply uncouth and it turns
people off.
Following the school rules show that you're disciplined, and it
also shows that you're mature enough to think for yourself what's
right and what's not. If you think that breaking school rules are
cool, think again.
The government is promoting the "gracious society" thingy, so I
think in a sense, following school rules, making yourself look
neater is part of showing that you're civilized and
cultivated.
------------------
It is by tiny steps that we
ascend the stars.
[This message has been edited by CheekyCow (edited 29 January
2002).]
