Just Another Quirky School Thing

After much discussion, the Fashion Show did occur, and there was Mrs. Kauhn with her increasingly alternative attire, and there was Mr. Viscardi with his flamboyant alligator shoes. 

The first rows are always the best to watch. A mixture between involved parents and lustful college freshmen, they give for the most amusing interactions. There is a kind of priceless look that a father gets when overhearing a conversation detailing her daughter’s gluteal muscles. He becomes offended at these commentaries, but he cannot speak up against them, because although they would be out of order in any context, not in this one. If his daughter is purposefully displaying her butt cheeks in front of an audience, who is he to prevent them from watching and commenting. That’s what they came for. That’s what she came for.

I googled it. Most of the best private schools have fashion shows. It seems so absurd, so surreal. Everything associated with fashion shows; sexual objectification (mainly) of teenage girls, unhealthy eating habits, aggrandizement of physical beauty, all seem to be things that go directly against the beliefs of modern north American educators. 

My opinion is that the American educational system has become a bit exaggerated on the conservative side of this type of issue (my parents had to come to my elementary school in Cambridge Mass. when I told a girl she was fat). But things seem to take a strange turn in Fashion Shows, because although most teachers loathe it, the event perdures.  

 

Under Sergio Fajardo, Antioquia banned Fashion Shows in public schools. In an interview done by El Tiempo¹ , Mr. Fajardo basically expressed my own point of view: Fashion Shows are awesome, but it is unreasonable to host them in a learning environment. And if we do host a fashion show, I don’t think it’s half as bad as some extremists make it sound, but what I really don’t get is why the administration permits it. 

*http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/medellin/ARTICULO-WEB-NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-12113743.html