Summary
Appearance Are Destructive, written by Mathabane, which is about the author’s sisters are discriminated by their appearance and their clothes in school. He hopes his sisters can learn better with modern textbooks, computers, and technology so he enrolled them at American local public school from South Africa. But despite these benefits, they were mocked by their homely clothes. After visiting other schools, the author knows that his sisters’ experiences are not unique.
In school, students know brands like Nike, Adidas and Calvin Klein more than Shakespeare and Zora Neale Hurston. Too many students lay too much stress on their appearance than their minds. Their competition is even not constructed on academic achievements but on who dresses more expensively or fashion. And comparing their parental love by how their parents are willing to pay money for them. At the same time, parents without paying money for their children’s appearance are considered cruel. Most students think that the more cool appearance they have, the more respect and status they get. And civil libertarians think that dress codes violate freedom of expression is wrong.
Finally, the author says that academic environment must have dress codes because they should create the proper learning environment and let students focus more on learning and less on materialism.
Response:
In this material world, it is not easy for students being attracted. Nowadays, more and more brands and material things attract students’ attention. That’s the reason why students will compete with each other. Modern world brings people more effective and more convenient; on the other hand, it also let people be more lazy and value external but not internal.
Why students will value appearance? The answer is bad society custom. For example, show girls, receptionists, models, and more and more occupations all need “a good appearance.” If you have a good appearance, your society status will ascend and other people will respect and flatter you. This vanity makes you satisfy. I think that nowadays, students pay more attention to their external and focus less on their minds. According to this condition, when they are growing up, most students become useless because they do not have profession and they cannot do anything well. They forget their duties, including studying and improving themselves.
For me, appearance is not the most important because except being a model, you cannot earn money or get anything by your good appearance. So I prefer improving my ability to making up myself.
After reading your article, I think students should know what their values are. Should they pay more attention in their schoolwork or dressing up themselves as attractive people? In my opinion, I think being a student should focus on their study but not invariably. Because of information technology, students can gain more information about different fashion styles. If they can learn how to become attractive, it is not bad for them, isn’t it? But they shouldn’t just pursue fashion things while they are in class, they should learn knowledge from their textbooks. A truly intelligent student should know how to obtain the balance between those two. According to your response, there are some examples about the benefit of having great appearance. You referred show girls, receptionists, models, and more and more occupations all need “a good appearance.” Most students pursue attractive appearance because it can earn high status in our society. But I don’t agree your opinion about “appearance is not the most important because except being a model, you cannot earn money or get anything by your good appearance.” I think appearance is not the most important, but it isn’t just can be a model. Having attractive appearance and wisdom can let you gain more persuasiveness not just can do nothing!
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