Teen Boys Respond To Heat Wave By Wearing Skirts To School
By Mustafa GatollariUpdated April 26 2020, 2:13 p.m. ET
As summer closes in every year, it always seems like school is the hottest place to be. Most schools don't have air conditioning in a lot of the rooms. It is one reason I used to love the computer lab when I was younger because it was always cold in there. But even though the temperature really gets turned up, and people are sitting there learning for hours, most schools have dress codes that have to be adhered to. A lot of schools do not like their young men wearing shorts, no matter how hot it is. Wearing pants on a brutally hot day and just sitting there probably does not help the learning process. It is hard to think about anything else besides how hot it is outside and inside and focusing on anything else can be near impossible at times. Sometimes, it appears, our best thinking comes in our most desperate times.
Teenage boys at Isca Academy in Exeter in Devon, England requested to wear shorts in the face of the current heat wave. Something that the headmaster of their school reportedly refused to acquiesce to, maintaining that all boys needed to wear pants, regardless of the heat.
So the boys decided to do something that a lot of men who aren't being allowed to wear shorts in "professional" environments are doing: they started rocking skirts.
Most tweets supporting boys at Devon school wearing skirts to lessons in protest at not being allowed to put on shorts in heatwave. pic.twitter.com/POWm2oTUVj
— Simon Hall (@SimonHallNews) June 22, 2017Twitter got wind of the news, and people were all about the skirt-wearing protest.
Boys at Isca Academy in Exeter wear skirts to school in protest at not being allowed to wear shorts in hot weather. pic.twitter.com/XHrffnSQEN
— Simon Hall (@SimonHallNews) June 22, 2017Fair play to the lads!
Certainly getting the publicity they deserve to overturn an absurd uniform rule. https://t.co/SM5Mmllk7d
— Ian Martin (@ian0martin) June 22, 2017Genius!
This is an amazing generation. https://t.co/cbgiOKVEJN
Direct action is always stylish https://t.co/b7voZk9rK6
— Carl Gent (@GentCarl) June 22, 2017Some also applauded that the protest was more about a "practical" reaction to a "stupid" dress code.
While I applaud any breaking of gender norms, this really is more about the weather and stupid school uniform policy than it is that. https://t.co/ShxF6mVOWQ
— ¡No pasarán! (@ThatSabineGirl) June 22, 2017This makes me proud to be an Exeter boy, albeit a slightly older one. Thunderous applause for these dudes. https://t.co/fcyX0z0OPB
— Nicholas Pegg (@NicholasPegg) June 22, 2017Others, however, weren't too fond of the initiative and think they'd do better to "tow the line."
Teaching our kids to have little respect for authorities and protest because "it's too hot" will only produce obnoxious brats.#narcissism
— Steve Buckley (@SteveJBuckley) June 22, 2017Others had reactions to that.
You must be fun at parties Steve.
— MJ (@Jamzeh1) June 22, 2017How much energy do UK schools waste enforcing uniform policies that other countries manage quite well without?
— Richard Hussey (@RichardHussey1) June 22, 2017Do you think this is a good way to beat the heat?
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