Of Dressing Formally

Demand to dress formally has been tradition in PBI, or at least, since I studied in this study program. The standard of the formality is varied and usually based on lecturer’s taste. But most of them identify formality with shirt, T-shirt with collar, and shoes. According to some of them, this formality will make students look neat. Most of them argue that education is a field where the individuals must look convincing because they are going to deal with children and they are going to be models for them. The way they dress, according to those lecturers, can help other people give such good impression to the children and people in society. However, some students do not agree with that demand. They who do not agree usually do not really mean to criticize the demand of dressing formally. My speculation is they actually do not really mind of the way they dress; the way they dress is not something really crucial to be fought. Here, from this reading, I suggest that demand to be considered and the students of PBI to be critical to this demand. The reason why this demand must be considered is because the valuation of neatness and properness which becomes the impact of formality is subjective and not debatable. The demand to dress in such way is also the discrimination of someone’s expression. Beside that, formality does not guarantee someone’s competence or guarantee good learning process for the students. Here are the explanations of things –I have mentioned before- which need to be considered before demanding formal dress for students.

The first consideration is that neatness and properness as the possible effect of dressing formally is subjective. As what has been mentioned before, most lecturers require their students to wear shirt or T-shirt with collar, and shoes during their class. Those symbols become the reason why the students can be considered as neat. Whereas, subjectively I see that not every body wears those kinds of clothes looks neat. Neatness is about taste and taste cannot be debated. There are no absolute boundaries of neatness. That is why neatness cannot be measured. Thus identification of neatness with shirt, T-shirt with collar, and shoes is an effort to impose some people’s subjectivity to others. Then, to avoid subjectivity imposition from lecturers to students, demand of dressing formally should be abolished.

The second consideration is the way someone expresses themselves through dress. The problem is the subjectivity about neatness and properness is used as a foundation to decide something. Some lecturers require “neatness” to their students in order to be able to attend a class. The students -including them who do not agree with this requirement- prefer to obey it because attending class is more important rather than debating about how they want to dress. Because it seems that the lecturers have bigger bargaining position (even though according to most statutes, students actually has the same right to demand to the institution they are studying in), the students –like it or not- choose to obey the instructions given by the lecturers. Thus this “neatness requirement” in the end brings discrimination to someone’s right to dress as they like. Whereas, the way someone dresses is one of the ways to express one’s self. It does not mean that “to be neat” is bad. But, firstly, the definition of neat to each person is different. Secondly, what bad is: demanding others to wear something subjectively neat. Again, based on the rationalization have explained, dressing formally must be considered; dressing formally might be an option for someone to dress, but not an imposition.

The third consideration is the motto “Don’t judge the book by its cover”. Some lecturers argue that the neatness effect of the formal dress students wear will give good impression to others. The paradox is that most of us also often say, “Don’t judge the book by its cover.” The fact is that, in our society today, those who dress “neatly” is indeed often considered competent. Whereas, the other fact is that, not all of them are guaranteed competent. If we want to be consistent with the motto above, we have to fight for that. It does not mean that we intentionally wear clothes “messily” in order to be consistent with the motto, but actually, we do not have to be afraid to wear something we like even though most people consider it improper unless we do neither say nor believe in that motto which often “fills the air”. If we do (say and believe it), than it is our responsibility to change most people’s paradigm about how to valuate someone; show them that it is not what we wear which determine our competence, but what we have in our brain and our heart.

The forth consideration is students’ comfort when they study such material. Some lecturers argue that as candidates of educators, students of PBI have to be ready to be models for their students. That is why they need to dress neatly and properly because they need to educate their students later to dress that way. But have we ever asked: why do we need to dress that way and influence others to dress the same? Is there any significance of dressing neatly and properly with good learning process? Is not it more important to increase students motivation instead of worrying about clothes they must wear? Why do not we teach students with informal clothes? In Europe, most of schools absolve the students to wear any clothes they like, not impose them to wear uniform during their studying process in school. But there are still many intellectuals “produced” from that continent. It does not mean that those continent is better than our country (because we also have many intellectuals), but it proves that there is no indication of significance of formality with intellectuality. Google and Facebook as two of the biggest companies in the world absolve their employees to dress informally. In Oprah Winfrey Show the employees of Google even state that this is one of the reasons of their good ethos of working: they feel homey by dressing that way. A book titled “Belok Kiri Jalan Terus (Turn Left Go Ahead)” writes that Ivan Illich, a progressive intellectual, in his book “Descholing Society” criticizes education which emphasizes confession rather than knowledge (p. 46). Thus if the way we dress becomes a requirement of attending class, we can be considered emphasizing confession rather than knowledge because before getting knowledge, a student must be confessed neat by his/her lecturers. If we do not want to be categorized as someone who put confession above knowledge, we, as either students or lecturers, must put the content of the lesson above the clothes we wear.

There have been explanations about why dressing formally needs to be considered again. First is the neatness effect from the formal dress someone wears is subjective. Second is that the demand to wear formal dress is a discrimination of someone’s right to express them selves through the way they dress. Third is formal dress does not guarantee someone’s competence. The fourth is the knowledge and comfort to achieve it are actually more important in learning process rather than the confession that someone dress neatly, properly, formally or not. From those explanations, the demand mentioned from the beginning of this writing has potency to be ended soon by both students and lecturers.