Is your school this tough?

I ran across this article about how a school in Indiana handled violations to their dress code on the first day of school. Here is part of it quoted:

"Classrooms were a little less crowded at Morton High School on the first day of classes: 128 students were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes.

"Fed up with inappropriate outfits, the principal suspended the students (128 of them) for one day Wednesday, minutes after doors opened at the school. Those suspended represent more than 10 percent of the 1,2oo total students."

Wow! How would you like for that to happen at your school? But isn't there some justification to this? I mean, the dress codes at our schools are clear; why won't students follow them? Better yet, why don't students want to follow them?

When I read a story like this a whole lot of things go through my mind. But above all of that, I have to ask where the parents are. Why do mom and dad let kids leave the house dressed inappropriately? Do they know, or even care, that there is a dress code? And what about the students? It doesn't take a genius to know why students choose to dress the way that they do. I'm not talking about style here. I'm talking about self-image. It breaks my heart when I see guys and girls dressing in ways that are too inappropriate or revealing or offensive because it reveals a lot about how they view themselves on the inside. Our outsides are simply a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. When we don't like who we are on the inside, we will try out best to make the outside more appealing to others, even if it sends the wrong message.

Maybe instead of relying on the schools to regulate how we can and cannot dress, we should rely on God to find our purpose and proper image of ourselves. When we realize just how much God loves us then we don't have to worry so much about how much the world will love us because we simply won't care.