Straight-A Student Pulled From Class Over Hair Color

[Roy Tucker]

Yeah, I agree with GAC, looks pretty tame to me. Don't understand the big deal made.

I've given my kids fairly free reign in clothing and style as long as it isn't permanent (tatoos and piercings). But they pretty well stick to polo shirts, khakis, and jeans. My son even gets haircuts without me telling him to.

Funny, but we don't see smart kids getting ostracized in our schools. You['ve always got your cliques, but smart kids seem to do just fine. Talking to my son last night (he's a HS senior), a 4.3 GPA gets you in the last slot in the top 10% of a 650 kid class.

[Ravenlord]

oh God...i rember being this kid. i could write pages of stupid crap like this that's happened to me in school. let's jsut going over the silliest....

1. being suspended for 3-days for multiple complaints about what i had written on the book cover protecter on my algerbra book. i had written on it using the Elder Futhark (Norse alphabet), but it was still in English. the script read: "No life's so short it can't turn around
You can't spend your life living underground
For from above you don't hear a sound
And I'm out here, waiting
I don't understand what you want me to be
It's the dark you're hating, it's not who I am
But I know that it's all that you see"

2. as a freshman in high school, i ran into the principal in the hall, her first words ever to me: "you need a haircut and an attitude change or you'll be sorry."

3. nearly getting suspended for having this on a notebook (and entirely in English): "Moments of reason that we hope to find
Are we a thought somewhere in God's mind
A work of art that He has never signed
Children and mirrors have no memory
They reflect us for that is all they see
They are the us that is still yet to be
And so we carry on"

4. being forced to tear the front cover off of my English notebook as it had been deemed offensive. the cover had this picutre taped to it:


i think that's enough for now, or i might not stop writing.

[Hap]

I would bet that if this girl's mom or dad was a teacher or was on the school board, nothing would have been made of it.

[TeamBoone]

Wow, Raven.

I guess I can MAYBE see the Megadeath thing (really really just a maybe), but the others stink. How did you ever survive?

Sounds like teachers had it in for you, even though you got good grades. I guess there's a stereotype that academic excellence must live up to instead of realizing that not all kids are alike.

I've never been able to figure out why schools don't try harder to promote individuality, within reason of course.

[Johnny Footstool]

Public schools, 99 times out of 100, reflect the "values" of the districts they serve. For good or bad.

I find that they reflect the "values" of the administration, or at least certain individuals in the administration, more than the district.

[Johnny Footstool]

oh God...i rember being this kid. i could write pages of stupid crap like this that's happened to me in school. let's jsut going over the silliest....

I love how when you grow up, adults teach you not to judge people by their looks. "Never judge a book by it's cover," and all that rot.

Then you get older and realize that *everyone*, including educators, does exactly that.

[Falls City Beer]

I find that they reflect the "values" of the administration, or at least certain individuals in the administration, more than the district.

Eh. Most school boards are voted upon by people within the district. While the cross-section may not be representative, it's pretty much a democratic mechanism.

Problem with it is that not enough people involve themselves in the process, so it ends up being the busybodies who make the rules.

But in general liberal districts have liberal administrations, conservative conservative. There's remarkable transparency in most public school districts. Private schools are another matter altogether.

[GAC]

Isn't it sad, Yachtzee, that intelligent kids get ostracized?

That was never my problem.

[savafan]

Not surprised by this at all.

Ravenlord and I went to the same school, although I graduated before the principal he had was there. She became assistant principal my senior year, and took over as principal the year after.

I had been hired my senior year to be an assistant coach for the academic challenge and science olympiad teams the next year. For those who don't know, academic challenge is like HI-Q or Jeopardy.

I was always a good student, not great, but not horrible either. I used to have unique hairstyles as well, and anyone who met me at the Redszone gathering a few years back when I had the fire engine red haircolor knows this.

My freshman year of college, I believe my hair was a burgundy shade, perhaps purple...don't really recall. When I arrived for the first day of Academic Challenge tryouts in 1996, the principal stopped me in the hallway before I was able to make it to the practice. She called me into her office and asked me who I was and what I was doing there. After I told her, she told me that my services wouldn't be needed, because I was not a "proper role model" for the students of that school.


After the Columbine incident, she also targeted Ravenlord as a potential danger for no apparent reason than the fact that he had long hair and liked heavy metal music. She threatened to suspend him from school for this reason alone.

[registerthis]

I found a number of girls in my school very distracting, but the last thing i woul dhave wanted to have happen was for them to be suspended. No, I liked them exactly where they were.

[savafan]

Wouldn't make-up also be considered distracting?

[Dom Heffner]

found a number of girls in my school very distracting, but the last thing i woul dhave wanted to have happen was for them to be suspended. No, I liked them exactly where they were.

Oh dear god, this is true. And still happens today, close to twenty years later.

These stories just keep coming, and I've never failed to shake my head at them. School districts confuse themselves with business owners.

I mean, here this girl is, at the only point in her life where she can express some individuality and her school officials treat her like this. Meanwhile, the faculty with perfect hair and acceptable dress codes are cheating on their spouses, beating their kids, having sex with students, cheating on their taxes, and breaking traffic laws every day.

Also- this girl's intelligence has nothing to do with how far she can go with style. She has the same rights as the laziest as well as the hardest working student.

It is advantageous to the argument, though, that stuff like personal style has no effect on anything given how smart she seems to be.

[pedro]

Wouldn't make-up also be considered distracting?

I always found girls themselves distracting. let's take them out of school too.

[Roy Tucker]

Meanwhile, the faculty with perfect hair and acceptable dress codes are cheating on their spouses, beating their kids, having sex with students, cheating on their taxes, and breaking traffic laws every day.

Not to mention taking the tags off their mattresses.

[Dom Heffner]

Not to mention taking the tags off their mattresses.

This could be another thread by itself, but this one has always puzzled me. Is it the manufacturer and retailer that are not allowed to remove the tag, or is it the consumer?

I had one of those "myth" books that dispelled common notions over a variety of topics, and this was one of them. It indicated that the rule on the tag was meant to apply only to the manufacturer or retailer, not the person who buys the mattress.

I used to read that book all the time and went around correcting people whenever they would say something the book said was incorrect (what a little jerk I must have seemed like, eh?) and then as I got older I found the book to be incorrect on all sorts of things. It's tough trying to dump that knowledge out of my mind, because I used to read that thing constantly.

My point: I don't trust the book's explanation on the removal of mattress tags, so if anyone could help out (max?) it would be appreciated.