Jason Smith, the high school principal at Stonybrook Intermediate and Middle School in Indianapolis, Indiana, understood that sentiment. And that is why it was easy to take action for one of your students, Anthony Moore.
Moore was wearing a hat, which goes against the school’s dress code. After the student spoke to the school principal for about 30 minutes, Smith was invited to intervene.
“I sat across from him and asked, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you being defiant, why are you refusing to take your hat off? It’s a very simple request,'” said Smith. “And he explained that his parents took him to get a haircut and he didn’t like the result.”
Smith said that he and the dean thought his hair was fine. “But you know that he is a 13 [or] A 14-year-old boy, and we know that social acceptance is more important than adult acceptance, “he said.
“I said to him, ‘Look, I’ve been cutting hair since I was your age’ and I showed him pictures of my son’s haircuts I did and some of my hair cut in college. And I said, ‘home and take my scissors and fix your thread, are you going back to class? ‘”said Smith. “He hesitated, but then he said yes.”
Then, in the snow, Smith came home to pick up his scissors and took her to the office to line up Moore’s head while his parents were asked to obtain consent to touch up their hair.
Moore’s mother, Tawanda Johnson, said she thought the gesture was wonderful.
“He (Smith) handled it very well to keep him from getting into trouble at school,” she said. “I’m glad he was able to handle it without … being put on hold at school.”
“Just because I’m a black man and go through this culture and you know, I really think that girls are important at that age, that [means] the appearance could then matter. He was afraid that they would laugh and we were sure that no one would notice, but he was looking through his lenses, “said Smith.
Smith made sure to check on Moore throughout the day and found that he was learning and was not wearing a hat after the retouch.
“All behavior is communication and when a student is struggling, we need to ask ourselves what happened to that child, instead of what is wrong with him,” said Smith. “What the child needs is to try to be satisfied and really, the future of urban education depends on this issue”.
Smith said that the consequence of not following the dress code would normally be suspension from school or being caught by a parent, which, Smith said, “would have prevented him from standing in front of a class teacher and giving him education he deserves, so it really worked well. ”