LF's hair vs. school

[azurelunatic]

marxdarx gave the Little Fayoumis a spiffin' new haircut over spring break -- checkered.

Sadly, the principal informed me that this was very cool, but not school-suitable.

His hair is of uniform length now.

Comments

[elysianmusings.livejournal.com]

How is uneven hair length not 'school-suitable.' Inquiring minds want to know.

Unless of course LF goes to a Roman Catholic school like I did as a child. Where girls could not have short hair and boy's hair could not touch their ears. *gags* Glad I got the hell out of there.

[azurelunatic]

Short hair with a pattern shaved into it? It's one of those things that looks incredibly cool, is hell to maintain, probably expensive to maintain if you're not doing this at home, and can easily be subverted into gang stuff. This is Phoenix, so we worry about this in elementary schools.

The principal commented that she had some wannabe gangsters in the 6th grade, and she was tempted to tell them, "Okay, I can drop you off at [gang-intensive location], and see how long you last..."

[elysianmusings.livejournal.com]

I have trouble telling if so much of the behavior schools associate with gangs are really that problematic, or how much of it is to make them conform.

One of the school's in Milwaukee (where I grew up) has come to the conclusion over time that gang behavior has little to do with how the student dresses. It's their overall personality.

[azurelunatic]

The logic that I would use to explain it would be, "It's harder for the other kids to tell which ones are a gang if the easy stuff is prohibited."

But I suspect that a lot of it is for conformity... with the appearance of individuality (they don't wear uniforms there).