Coats are good

I’m enjoying, yes enjoying, the cold as it brings light fluffy snow, but this enjoyment is only enabled by the multitude of layers and serious coat which keep me snuggly warm. Our students are not so lucky. Not only do the girls have to wear knee-lenth skirts without stockings, and scarves and gloves are not allowed to be worn inside the UNHEATED classrooms, but I just found out yesterday that students are not allowed to wear coats on their way to and from school. Is this some kind of new torture device? A way of keeping girls subservient as they are too numb to do or think anything? The boys uniforms allow for much layering underneath, but all the girls have completely bare legs in temperatures cold enough for snow. Today at morning staff meeting one of the teachers brought up a student’s name that had been caught wearing a coat after school. The student said they had a cold so they figured it would be excusable. Think again. I think it was left up to the homeroom teacher to give the student a telling off. Yet the other thing that confuses me is that students are allowed to wear whatever tops they like underneath the uniform with no guide as to colour or trying to fit in with the rest of the uniform (and believe me, the underneath tops are in no way invisible). So if any tops underneath are ok, why aren’t coats ok? Once again the lack of common-sense, indeed the anti-common-sense, baffles and astounds me. At least I now know why so many Japanese women stand around freezing in mini-skirts – after six years of conditioning they’ve probably forgotten that it is possible to be warm in winter. All I can say is, damn I’m glad I’m a teacher.