new thread
my friend who does guitar lessons with me noticed i was growing my hair long and complimented me on the decision (finally)
i told him hed look awosme with longhair too and so did my teacher whos an ex longhair..........
but then he told me that his private school (i go to public)
not only doesent allow longhair but requires all kids to have a regular scissored top layered/shaved sides hairdo and if it grows out too long they get sent home to get a haircut!!!!!
i think that this is deprevation of liberty almost
has anyone else had troubles with private schools hair policies??
That is the main reason that was holding me back from growing my hair out. I have wanted long hair for several years now but i went to a private school and restrictions on hair length were very strict and enforcable. Hair could not be over the collar, not be coloured or bleached, could not be any shorter than a "2 blade" and it had to look 'reasonable'(no mullets or rat tails , mohawks etc. I remeber that once in grade 10 i was sent home for having my hair too short. I got it buzzed a dead zero and it was still short from the holidays. I was penalised harshly for it. When i look back on this it seems so trivial and stupid but at the same time i was scared and had to conform. I frequently used to compare my school's authoritarian figures, such as the principle and teachers, to Hitler and the nazi regime of the 1940s. It was like a big fashist system in a way.
Here i am 15 months later and i'm well on my way to longhair. Not even god will stop me from acheiving my goal. It is embedded in me to have long hair , undisputedly.
I actually have had a comparatively lenient school in regards to that (for a Catholic school). The rule was no hair past the collar.
So, I had to trim the lower back of my hair several times, until my hair was long enough for me to pull back into a ponytail. That was fine for a while, until they then made me pin the ponytail up. Very annoying.
It's pretty common. And in the US if you go to a private school, as strange as it may sound you check your "freedom" at the door. Goinng to a private school is not a right, here, it's a "privilege". Private schools, so long as they do not take federal money for their programs, owe you nothing with regards to your rights. Of course, they cannot physically harm you, but they can write their dress code to say anything they want, and when you are accepted into their program, you sign a document saying that you accept their rules. Any exception and you are out.
I taught in a private (Catholic) school for 12 years. Best move I ever made was to leave and teach in a public school and remove myown children from Catholic schools and get them into public schools, too. My only regret is that I didn't do that sooner.
Robert
That may not be wholly the case, when it comes to long hair, in one state - California. The state's Unruh Act prohibits discrimination against certain classes of people, and courts have held "long hair" to be a protected class. The Unruh Act applies to any concern in California which provides services to members of the public, and schools, both public and private, are considered to be such. The case where long hair was written into the law by the courts concerned patrons at a privately-owned shopping center as I recall.
Curiously, the Unruh Act does not apply to employees - a less-broad different act does - which means that the stores in the mall could prohibit long hair on employees but could not on customers. This leads to the quirk, in a school setting, that a school may prohibit male longhaired TEACHERS but cannot prohibit male longhaired STUDENTS.
Of course, our hope is that protection of longhaired employees will follow in time.
The Unruh Act applies to hair but not generally to clothing, so dress codes are not verboten, just hair codes.
Bill
teachers at our school also say that private school kids have a harder time at uni because they arent as self sufficient in terms of study
I absolutely agree with whoever said that. I went to a private school for 10 years, a school which called itself a "preparatory" school, and while it definitely had its plusses, it DEFINITELY had things that sucked. but yeah, it was a very unrealistic environment. I never ever witnessed a fight, we never had more than like 20 people in a class, and the teachers babied us. And yeah, i had to have short hair and be clean shaven every single day.... it sucked!
I went to a state run school here in the UK and it never did me any harm and there were quite a few of the teachers with longhair. Finr if you parents have got the cash to send you to private school.
John.B
Here in the US, it's really hard to find a private school that doesn't have an agenda, stated or hidden, other than education.
It could be:
1) religious indoctrination
2) racism
3) classism
4) and ethnocentrism (loads of schools here have as their founding purpose to insure that the children of the founders would not have to go to schools with children who were different racially, religiously, or econmoically.
With those narrow purposes come high expectations about conformity which always include hair and dress.
Robert
Well not entirely true. If you look at the statistics i can assure that there is a greater rate of private school students that further their education at university. As for the public system it would be alot less. Although in private schools the rules and system can be very strict and harsh but atleast they force every student to apply themselves to their studies and i can honestly say my teachers were concerned with each individual student as opposed to just a whole class. This meant we got a better education and it is more beneficial to our studies. Smaller classes are better. Most public schools would have 1 teacher for maybe 30-40 students, too much. Smaller classes definately ensure the students are getting more help from the teacher and and can maximise their studying.
id assume mor eprivate school kids make it to uni....higher end of school marks and the fact that if you can afford private school youre more likely to be able to afford uni costs (hex debts are incredible here sometihng like $30,000 for the average degree....although you can pay it off over time)
haha maybe our teachers are just saying it to make us poorer kids feel better lol :p
If they tried to force the girls in a school to have short hair (or long hair) there'd be outrage. Equal rights, eh?
Yes, this issue was brought up at one of the resorts I worked at.
the fact that the female employees had waist length hair, but the men were required to have it cut above the ears and short collar.
this applied to all employees including laudry attendents, landscaping crew, and dishwashers too!
