Might I ask what “whooshed” means?
BWWWaaaaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
The kids broke a known rule. They knew what they were doing. Perhaps it IS a stupid rule, but that’s another matter.
And another thing…
It’s complete nonsense to think that the schools have a vested interest in making people conform. No school rules are made for this reason. They are made to get kids to sit down for two or three consecutive minutes and learn something without being distracted - a skill that is in decline.
Hey Swampbear, that’s a pretty funny story. Now pretend you’re the teacher and multiply it by 25 other kids. Is it still funny? Would it still be funny if YOUR kid was in a class with a disruptive student that kept him from achieving?
As a teacher, I like the kids that are unique and different. I don’t want them to “conform”, only to act appropriately. In our situation, I and the adminstrators decide what is appropriate. If that constitutes conformity, so be it. We have a job to get done, and the same people who complain about this sort of thing are also quick to complain when we don’t work miracles.
Perhaps (your name here) was “whooshing” back? In case that’s not the case, ynh pass your hand over your head like a low flying plane and supply the sound effect: “whoosh.” Repeat, as neccessary. I find it amusing, like probing ants and grubs from an old log with a twig. Tasty, tasty.
This “hair thang” just seems a typical case of childish “how far can I push?” Maybe on both sides. This is what caught my eye:
So, what, is Amber the only one who plans to go to college of these five children? Or are their parents willing to pay for all but Amber :eek:?
Mwahahahaha That is along the same lines as my “The only thing a non-conformist can’t stand more than a conformist, is a non-conformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standards of non-conformity” Can I steal it for a sig?
As to the OP… well they broke a known rule… at my school we have rules that we can’t be too outlandish either. Sean had blue hair when he came to the school… 2 months later the Principal finally got him to change his hair. My school has different reasons though. We are a major part of the business community. We’re a transitional school meant to help people upgrade and get where they want to go. Visiting CEO’s and stuff don’t want to see people running around with blue hair because then they’ll wonder if we are really producing the sort of students they will want to hire/mentor/intern etc etc.
-shrugs- Coloured hair is cool but there has to be a point where they say stop you won’t get anywhere like this because the sad truth is… you probably won’t.
More likely that Amber’s graduating this year.
Honestly, if you’ve never taught in a classroom, you really can’t speak on this matter…just like if you’re not black, you really shouldn’t speak on the “black experience”. People in academia will try to do it, but they always come off sounding like assholes. Teaching is quite possibly the most challenging and thankless job on the face of the planet. If you can corral thirty-six students into their seats, get them to bring paper, book, and pencil to class, manage to get their mouths shut for more than two minutes, and actually teach them something, you shouldn’t then have to worry about disruptive hairstyles. While I normally acknowlege my students’ more impressive hairstyles with a simple smile and nod, I can certainly understand how they can become a problem. I teach in a predominantly African-American school though, and if anyone wants to try and tell a sixteen year old African-American girl how to wear her hair, I’d like to see them try. I have, however, taken up many a comb, pick, wavecap, etc. due to excessive primping in the classroom. Try teaching class while a girl cornrows the boy’s hair in front of her. I never lecture, and I run a fairly laidback classroom, but it’s still damn distracting to whatever I’m trying to accomplish.
A prime example of how rules like these are misunderstood: I made a girl call home last year to have her mother bring her a different pair of underwear. While technically there was nothing in the rulebook about girls wearing thong underwear, I found her particular ensemble offensive. She was wearing hip-hugger Capri pants, a cropped shirt that barely met the tops of the pants, and G-string panties. When seated, every boy in the room could see the top three inches of her thong, not to mention the crack of her ass. It was disruptive and inappropriate, and my principal backed me up 100%. When I told my non-teaching friends about making the girl change, they called me a Nazi and accused me of abusing my power in the classroom. Whatever. It’s a shitty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Contrary to the trendy belief, the purpose of school is not to enforce conformity. The purpose is to educate. If anything, and I do mean anything, hinders the educational process, then it is expendable. Crazy hair can be displayed at ball games and the mall. School has a purpose; it’s not a social event. Of course children should express themselves, but maybe it’s time we teach children that self-expression isn’t best accomplished through clothes but through our lives and actions.
Thank you Erika
over your head
Fuh see shus
Actually if you study how the length of time people spend in school, prior to obtaining worthwhile secondary education, has grown over the last centuries you will discover that school is simply a utility of the older adult population to keep the younger adults from competeing in the job market. Read about this many times, best illustrated in My Ismael by Daniel Quinn
That’s one everybody should read. WOW!
I was actually quite surprised that I made it through my final year with “disruptive hair”. FWIW, I didn’t do it to be a punk or non-conformist; I just liked the colour. I’ve let it fade so I just have yellowy streaks in my hair now. The maintenance got to be too tedious for me, and I got sick of only wearing clothes that matched with pink.
But I went to a private school with a strict uniform code - we were told off if our socks weren’t pulled up, if we weren’t wearing our blazer with our jumper, if our ribbons weren’t in school colours, etc. My pink streaks went largely unnoticed by teachers but my friend at another (also private) school was sent home for bleaching his already blonde hair platinum and another was warned for dying his hair black. shrug Two people did tell me to change my hair, but they were teachers I never encountered. My everyday teachers didn’t care because they knew I was a good student.
My hair is pretty darned disruptive, especially first thing in the morning.
Here in New Mexico, we have a well-intentioned anti-weapon policy that includes a “no-tolerance” clause. This has resulted in 1) a girl being suspended from school for having a kitchen knife in her car (her family had moved over the weekend and it apparently fell out of a box - she never had it in her hand at school), 2) a boy being suspended for having a Leatherman tool in his locker (again, he didn’t threaten anyone with it), and 3) a girl being suspended for bringing her father’s keys to school, complete with one of those teensy swiss army knives on the keyring (my personal favorite). I believe every one of these students is subject to criminal prosecution as well, and I know the DA was talking about following through in at least the boy’s case.
Now, I have a problem with this rule. It makes the school administration look ridiculous and their rules seem arbitrary and capricious. This makes it very difficult for me to justify their authority to my own children with a straight face. “No, honey, I don’t know why they have this rule. No, I don’t know why your principal isn’t allowed to use her discretion. No, I don’t know why it’s okay for your teachers to have pointed steel scissors with 6-inch blades but you could be suspended for having a miniature penknife. No, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t respect the other rules…”
I believe this is what’s known as “picking your battles.” When I hear things like this, sometimes I wish the schools would pick the same ones I do, but that’s life, I guess.
Well, if they’re going to suspend students for breaking rules, then find a better name for it than something as laughable as “disruptive hair.”
This is a tiny school, not one with 2500 students. Instead of getting a broomstick up his ass about the students defying him, why doesn’t the goddamn principal have them talk about Civil Disobediance. That’s what these kids are doing: outright breaking rules that they think are unreasonable. Talk about Walden. Talk about the civil rights movement. Talk about Ghandi. Fucking TALK about it. Ask them to come up with other examples. Have them debate what circumstances they might do things like this, and in what situations they might try other efforts. Have every kid in the school think about it. Perhaps he could make a point with these kids that there are other things that they might want to try FIRST, like asking for a meeting with the principal, circulating a petition to allow certain types of hairstyles, Hell I dunno.
This guy could have made it an excellent learning opportunity --an outstanding hands-on, where-you-live civics lesson and chance to discuss and engage in this concept–for every kid in the school. That’s a much more appealing route, isn’t it, than just suspending them and getting it in the newspaper and having the media put a weird spin on the event? The only lesson that teaches is that Adults Who Feel Threatened Will Squash You. Conform or Suffer. I think this could have had a much better ending for every person involved.
Ooops. I apologize for my language. I thought I was in the pit. Sorry!
Generally, they can. But folks, we’re dealing with HORDES of kids!!! Way too many of them in lots of schools - maybe you’ve heard about the overcrowding problem? Use of discretion means spending time to get to know the details of every situation that needs attention. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for this.
What if the principal DID spend her time delving into the particulars of every untoward situation? Everyone would likely complain that she was shirking her other responsibilities - overseeing educators, budget, etc.
Public schools are unfortunately becoming more and more impersonal. Individual attention can be a scarce commodity. My guess is we’re going to see MORE of these kinds of rules, unfortunately. But frankly, I don’t see what else we can do.
Normally, yes. And that’s a sad truth about a lot of schools.
But this principal is in a different situation than your principal. Did I not read that this school has about 135 students? I think that allows for different opportunities, and a chance to address mutinies like this in a more constructive way.
Cranky, I was speaking generally. This situation is of a type we hear about from time to time. And I believe that the vast numbers of kids in our charge is itself a causative factor.
Your idea of turning the situation into a “teachable moment” is a good one, but also hints at the basic problem. One cannot have a meaningful classroom discussion about anything if the kids are not attending to what’s going on. And I think that’s the crux of the issue here.
The school was enforcing a rule which was intended to minimize distractions. It’s ironic that this action resulted in more distractions, and us discussing it here. But that doesn’t change the basic situation, and it is one that is repeated in schools everywhere many times each day.
Please believe me when I say that although I’m a teacher, I do not automatically support anything a school does. The administrators in my school district would never describe me as cooperative, let me assure you.
But my experience has generally led me to support most measures taken to ensure an orderly classroom/school.
Actually, most of our schools aren’t all that large. The principals at my daughters’ schools know most of the children and their parents by sight, and they also trust their teachers to fill them in on the particulars of any incident.
The teachers hate the “no knives of any kind” rule too. As written by our school board, it means that anyone, including a teacher or parent volunteer, who is found with any kind of knife, no matter how small, is subject to criminal prosecution for bringing a “weapon” onto school grounds. It’s a ridiculous rule, and everyone in the community acknowledges that, except, I suppose, members of the school board. The attitude among those who don’t actively support its repeal is that “you have to have no-tolerance rules.” I say that’s not how society at large works and that’s not how I want to see our schools run either.
I have to add, though, that I support the teachers and administration at our schools, even when I disagree with some of the particulars of their decisions. It frustrates me, however, when they make rules that defy common sense and are therefore difficult or impossible to explain. If the children in the article were mine, I wouldn’t let them spike their hair to protest the rules. I’d let them write letters or appear before the school board or do some other type of protest, but I wouldn’t let them break the rule, just as I don’t let my kids take penknives to school here.
At the school I went to, nobody had enough hair for it to be disruptive. Shit, the second day of school, my freshman year, they shaved it all off.
Good words Cranky.
I did a lot of this sort of thing when I was in High school. We would do stuff like read classic Russian novels in class to highlight how unchallenging our school work was. Were we being punk kids? yeah. Did we have a point? yeah.
Believe it or not, high school kids are human being capable of rational thought. Perhaps they arn’t old enough to decide who to marry, but they are old enough to dress themselves and to handle the presence of a kid with funky hair.
Kids get really resentful of being talked down to and given no voice in their schools. This fuels a lot of disenchantment with schools (I know a couple bright kids that dropped out because they were sick of having to raise their hand if they needed to go wee-wee). It also fuels rebellion. I think you’d find that if you give high school kids high expectations and a reasonable amount of freedom- and the responsibilities that go along with it- they will rise to the occasion. If oyu want kids to respect your rules, you have to give them a little bit of respect, too.
Also, many teachers resent these sorts of blanket rules. A teacher is the only one that knows what is and is not acceptable in their class room. They resent the implications that they are unable to control their classes, and they resent having to deal with a bunch of kids that are pissed-off by rules that don’t have any relevence. If something is disruptive, let the teacher decide and let them handle it. During high school I often blatantly disobeyed the dress code, but if an individual teacher asked me to cover up or change, I always resepected that. They know how to run their class rooms.
If you want kids to stop acting like animals, start treating them like humans.