UGH! Teach respect and limits by taking away their boots?

Does anyone else think the following is absurd?

Pennsylvania school district bans fur-lined boots

Published January 27, 2012

| Associated Press

POTTSTOWN, Pa. –  A suburban Philadelphia middle school’s ban on a popular type of fur-lined boots isn’t about fashion, it’s about cellphones.

Pottstown Middle School parents were informed of the new ban on the unlaced boots on Wednesday.

District community relations director John Armato tells the Pottstown Mercury students are using the boots to hide cellphones and bring them into class. Current school policy allows students to bring their phones to school but requires them to be kept in their locker during the day.

Armato says the ban targets the unlaced boots with fur or faux fur lining made by footwear companies including Ugg. It goes into effect Monday.

Principal Gail Cooper says students can still wear the boots to school, but must remove them before going to class.

I speak out about very few things, but I believe that governing what a person may or may not wear, really does border on infringing their  freedom of expression. I make allowances for limiting potentially offensive or provocative clothing probably because it has been a rule since I was in high school, which is why perhaps I swallow that pill a bit easier, but I still struggle with myself for being so malleable. 

I get very annoyed when I hear people in my community mention Obama being a communist or socialist, and then they hand me a flyer to promote a school uniform in a public school and I WANT TO SCREAM, “you can’t get anymore socialist than a uniform in a public school (a public school being a socialist concept and the uniform eliminating any sign of social elitism)!!!”

So what is it that we are trying to teach our kids? What is the lesson here? That it is rude and disrespectful to text while in class not to mention distracting?  Instead of teaching them respect or temperance we take away their right to wear their warm shoes to school? I want so badly to put my most sarcastic foot in my mouth and to blame Newt Gingrich for this, but I will NOT digress that far, this time.

I will tell you that I owned a t-shirt in high school that said, ‘life is a bed of roses, but watch out for the pricks’ which I was not allowed to wear, and I understood that if one didn’t have a proper sense of humor it might be deemed as offensive, as were the ‘grab a Heini’ t-shirts of my day, nor would I have tried to take a cell phone to class if it were against the rules because I have an internal moral barometer that tells me which limits to push and which rules to follow. Thankfully no one had to take my shoes away to teach me that.