I agree with you. There is also something that someone mentioned on the other thread which was that the “tznius” morah would lift a girl’s sweater to check if her shirt underneath was buttoned appropriately. Now I am a woman and as a young girl I would be totally embarrassed and humiliated if anyone, even a woman, did that to me. To me that is totally not tzniusdik, lifting a girl’s sweater to check what is underneath. It is appalling to say the least and totally degrading. Most probably meant to be so. Any similar measures that a “tznius” morah would use would certainly turn off any student and would “force” her to rebel not only against the system but against the issue making her own choices in the future of what she felt her idea of being a tzanuah was. And if in her mind being a good frum Jewish woman who didn’t embarrass others by looking up their sweater or measuring their skits by touching their legs with a ruler, then that’s it. They might have been so embarrassed by these “so called tznius morahs” that they closed the book on what those morahs said represented tznius. I probably would have also.
Let me tell you what my HS principal, a”h, did in Central Brooklyn. He was very fair minded and didn’t chase anyone he conducted “fire drills” and he stationed himself at one exit and another frum teacher at the other exit. As the girls left the building he looked down at the skirts. If he felt your skirt was too short he said “go home and change and looked up to see which young lady he was sending home”. If he passed anyone in the hall who he felt was not up to par he would call them into his office and tell them to go home and change. But he always did this in a quiet way without embarrassment or fuss. If he called you into the office more than a few times, he would politely tell you “I see that you are having difficulties living up to the standards of this school and that is fine for you if that is what you want and need. But that is not fine for us. So it is your choice, if that is what you choose I will be happy to call Rabbi “X” at Yeshiva of Flatbush and arrange a transfer for you. You have 10 minutes to give me an answer.”
The other thing he did was check our lockers and confiscate the “long skirt” that seemed to make its way around some of the girls to cover up the shorter skirts they were wearing. It just seemed to disappear into thin air. After a while the girls didn’t bother with it. That was the extent of it. The rest of the inyan of tznius was the role model of our Morah’s and the respect we had for our Rebbeim..for instance one of the Rebbeim said, “you know girls, I really cannot be in this room with you and teach you Torah if you are not dressed appropriately”. That is all it took. He didn’t point his finger at anyone, he didn’t say your knees are showing, he didn’t talk about knecks or elbows. We respected him for his honesty and all the other modest teachers for believing in themselves and their choices.