February 3, 2007 8:13 AM

If you need me, I'll be playing Russian Roulette in the living room

Girl, 4, kept out of school for pink hair

A 4-year-old Uvalde girl was banned from her pre-school because of her hair color. Natalyn Gracia loves her pink hair and so does her dad, Ricardo, but the Dalton Early Childhood Center calls her extreme and she’s missed the last four days of school because of it. Ricardo had her hair dyed for a school parade back in October. But, he said, he never got the warning letter that came two weeks later. If he had, he would not have had her hair re-pinked over the Christmas break. A spokeswoman for the school said they are working with Ricardo to make sure the girl is under compliance with the schools rules, which means she has to lose the pink hair.

I can understand if a school wanted to suspend a student for being disruptive, disrespectful, or perhaps even for failing to maintain proper hygiene. But suspending a 4-year-old for the high crime and misdemeanor of having pink hair? Have we completely lost our minds? Apparently, I don’t need to answer that question.

Realistically, how disruptive can a 4-year-old girl be? If Natalyn Gracia’s biggest crime was in dying her hair pink, you’d think that the Dalton Early Childhood Center would be grateful. By all indication, Natalyn’s a good kid, and not disruptive in any way…so why is she being treated like a criminal? Well, keep in mind that the #1 job of our schools is enforcing conformity. With a growing number of schools requiring uniforms these days, school are increasingly concerned with turning out student who look, talk, and act the same. It might seem silly, but it’s a lot less work for schools when conformity is the rule.

There’s an old Japanese proverb that says that the nail that stick up gets hammered down. Sadly, too many of our schools have become the living embodiment of that proverb. Instead of encouraging students to seek their own path and to lead a life that’s an expression of who they are, too many schools are concerned with the simple reality of graduating students. Instead of treating students as if they’re individuals, it’s a whole lot easier to keep students under wraps for 12 years. Besides, if one student has pink hair, before you know it, EVERYONE wants pink hair…and then what do you have? Yep, that’s right…CHAOS. And Chaos is the enemy in our school system. You simply cannot control students when everyone wants to do their own thing, to be individuals, and to express themselves in their own distinct way.

When schools are more concerned with compliance than education, you can begin to understand why they’re failing our children so badly. Natalyn Gracia didn’t bring guns or drugs to school, she brought pink hair because she thought it was cute. WTF?? Isn’t about time that the pointy-headed maroons who place compliance over education were made to realize that their mission is to EDUCATE our children, not to turn them into mindless automatons incapable of independent thought or individual expression? Man, if you’re going to embarrass a child, at least make it over something that matters….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 3, 2007 8:13 AM.

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