BK Designs & Photography Ateres Star Issue 3 | Page 11

The Ateres Yaakov Star

Dress to Impress

December 2014

11

By: Raffy Levin-9th Grade
Dress codes are a common area in
which students and parents alike
are sometimes critical of the rules
or even blatantly disregard them.
However, this doesn’t mean that
the rules don’t have tremendous
merit. Just as in school, many
workplaces and businesses have
dress codes and regulations to ensure that people look and act in a
professional manner.
A dress code is crucial in a school
because it sets a tone for what is
expected of a student’s behavior
and mannerisms. Dress codes also
give a yeshiva an identity and a
demonstration of our lofty status as
bnei Torah. Without dress codes,
our school would not be as productive as it is today, because students
would be dressing in an inappropriate way that is not befitting a
ben Torah and their style of dress
will start to manifest itself
negatively in their actions. Students
dressing casually as they desire can
be detrimental to the warm and
productive atmosphere that our
school, or any Yeshiva, provides. By
walking through the hallway
wearing a t-shirt and jeans, one
gives off an attitude of not caring
about work and behavior. It also
gives off a sense of relaxation that
is contrary

to the environment of the school,
which is to continue learning and
striving until the day is over.
A study on the effects of wearing
casual clothing at work was conducted by Dr. Karen Pine from the
University of Hertfordshire. The

study found that when employees
were dressed in casual attire,
productivity in seven different
companies went down by up to
twenty percent. This illustrates that
a dress code is essential in contributing to our productivity and
behavior.
Marketing companies and Hollywood producers alike spend hours
determining the wardrobe of
characters in ads and television
because the way someone dresses
has a direct correlation with how
they are perceived and ultimately,
how they perceive themselves.

While we encourage ourselves not
to “judge a book by its cover”, society still often does just that. Just
as one would never consider showing up to a job interview in jeans
and a t-shirt, students need to have
the same sense of professionalism
and conscientiousness in school.
The effect of a dress code manifests itself in the classroom. According to Mr. Shmuel Rada, a
teacher in the school, “Dress codes
are important because they add to
a feeling of seriousness and learning. When students arrive to class
sweaty and with their shirts out after gym, the effects can be felt immediately. But when they compose
themselves and are dressed in the
correct attire, it is easier to establish a setting of accomplishment
and motivation for the entire class.”
Ultimately, while we all enjoy the
idea of an occasional lazy day
where we roll out of bed in our pajamas and lounge around, we also
have to realize that by definition a
“lazy” day is the antithesis of true
accomplishment. In order to maximize our productivity and growth
in yeshiva, we must view the dress
code not as a set of restrictive
rules, but for what it really is: the
uniform we proudly wear as students and bnei Torah of MAY.