Yet another get-your-hair-cut suspension

[DarkReaper]

Originally Posted by BBC

A 15-year-old rock music fan suspended from school for refusing to cut his long hair says he will not back down. Grant Stranaghan, a GCSE student at Ballyclare High, was suspended for three days last week for having collar-length hair.

Upon his return, he was excluded from class for still not getting a hair cut. His father George said: "I could have cried when he told me what they did to him - they put him in a room and threw work at him, no contact with anyone."

Full story

Personally, I think it's well past time that they realised that long hair never hurt anyone

[dom_]

Get your hair cut you hippies!!!!
It is just hair and just a cut, if you don't like the rules then go somewhere else. If you want to go to a school that has these rules then follow them.

[tacticus]

Originally Posted by dom_

Get your hair cut you hippies!!!!
It is just hair and just a cut, if you don't like the rules then go somewhere else. If you want to go to a school that has these rules then follow them.

frak that if the school admins are so scared of long hair perhaps they require someone taking a look at their mind.

[dom_]

Who says they are afraid? Of course they are not.
They just want everyong to wear a uniform, be the same, act the same, and not do anything naughty, just do work.
Don't blow it out of proportion. They are not trying to stop anyone in their cool "we are different group" (by being the same as each other in the group), they just want to teach people easily without having to worry about kids having rebellions.

[airchie]

wtf?

How is the length of his hair any of the school's business??
As long as he does his work, isn't disruptive etc, then its fine.

Insisting on a school uniform is one thing, restricting someone's hair length is completely another.
What next, only white kids at this school? Only kids with blonde hair and blue eyes? No jews allowed?
I think you can see where I'm going with it, the school is out of order.

[Freedom]

I can understand school saying no skins heads/ very short hair becuases of its links to gangs culture in Britain at the moh. But when the last time you heard of gang (in britain anyway) that has long hair. My secoundary school had a strict a uniform policy where skin head were suspened but they let me grow my hair. The other thing its sexest why should women be alowed long hair but guys cant. I thought we were ment to have equal rights. They dont just protect woment they also are there to protect men.

[CardJoe]

Both have valid points. The school has a uniform policy to uphold, the kid has a right to look how he wants. The kid has the right to leave the school if he disagrees with their public policies, the school has the right to exclude him for breaking them. The kid should learn to compromise and stop being a stubborn baby, the school should learn to cut kids some slack over something which doesn't really matter.

In the end, nobody really cares and both parties are just injuring themselves by refusing to back down. All it is indicative of is a slow news day, an attention seeking brat and a school headmaster who let the authority go to their heads. Why give a ****?

[tacticus]

Originally Posted by dom_

Who says they are afraid? Of course they are not.
They just want everyong to wear a uniform, be the same, act the same, and not do anything naughty

or creative or interesting they just want people to obey and go back to sleep.
pretty much what every highschool has ever wanted
and occasionally they just want them to.

just do work.

Don't blow it out of proportion. They are not trying to stop anyone in their cool "we are different group" (by being the same as each other in the group), they just want to teach people easily without having to worry about kids having rebellions.

schools teach? wow that's something I doubt happens very often.

You occasionally get a teacher who let's through a slight bit of interesting stuff but the rest of the time they spiel their well worn uninteresting and prechewed crap

[Jamie]

I can understand he wants to be different but he does look like a bit of a mess to be frank.

[Hex]

Originally Posted by dom_

Get your hair cut you hippies!!!!
It is just hair and just a cut, if you don't like the rules then go somewhere else. If you want to go to a school that has these rules then follow them.

I'm sorry, but no. It's not a club you choose to go to. You are forced to go to school, you can't just go to school hundreds of miles away because that one has better rules. In this case the rules are stupid. It's not a health & safety issue as girls can have long hair.

Personally it makes me mad that I got sent home from school once for having purple hair even though it was actually a temporary black hair dye I'd used that looked a bit funny under fluorescent lights. My hair in no way affected my work. Just like now, my very pink hair in no way affects how I work in an office environment. Shame that some employers think it does (and no, I hate people so all jobs I go for don't involve contact with the public). It's much the same as when I got sent home from school for wearing culottes. The fact that it took them months to notice I wasn't wearing a skirt should really have pointed out that they didn't cause any problems.

School rules need a rethink, my school used to ban girls from wearing black socks with black tights, you had to wear navy socks, but black tights... Much of it is insanity.

[DarkReaper]

Originally Posted by Hex

It's not a health & safety issue as girls can have long hair.

That's my main issue. I'm quite happy with a rule against outrageous hairstyles - no big spikes, natural colours only, whatever. Even no skinheads although that is harder to argue. But letting girls have long hair and saying boys can't is thoroughly stupid.

[Hex]

Originally Posted by DarkReaper

That's my main issue. I'm quite happy with a rule against outrageous hairstyles - no big spikes, natural colours only, whatever. Even no skinheads although that is harder to argue. But letting girls have long hair and saying boys can't is thoroughly stupid.

It's just as stupid as boys can wear trousers but girls can't. There was a sit-in at my old school to allow girls to wear trousers. Some of the boys came in dressed in skirts to support us too. Sadly they only allowed 'special cases' generally the girl with really bad eczema on her legs and girls who rode bikes in to school. Pathetic in this day & age...

[crazyg1zm0]

i was threatend with suspension and excluded from lessons a few times cause i didnt want to cut my hair as my school was the same as this. but what i hated more is that because i was a border i was forced to have it cut but those who were not borders a.k.a day pupils were able to get away with it because they had less contact with the teachers than we did. also hair dye is worse in my opinion than long hair as some colours are really stupid and i accepted the no dye rule but was constantly questioning the long hair rule.

[Ramble]

I have long hair, never got bothered about it (and if I did, I would have ignored them).
Girls can wear trousers nowadays too.

[DaveVader]

it's ridiculous. Schools dont give a donkey's ding dong about learning these days. all offsted reports are fake because teachers kiss arse and make everything look so perfect and thats all they want.
in no way does hair effect learning. hair is what make you different from everyone else, thats why you have shaved hair in the army. uniform removes our personal identity so hair (and make up) is all that is left. they cannot stop kids being kids and people being people. the school is out of order and I support his campaign as it is proposterous and pointless to force someone to cut their hair while putting their education at stake.

[HugoB]

I guess the school will argue that it applies the same rules to all pupils and that it has a public image to maintain. The kid does look a mess.

The TR/Bit dress code is very strict though. Cardigans on a Wednesday, Hawiian shirt on a Friday... so many rules.

[ozstrike]

I've had trouble with this myself, but it's slightly different in that my school is a private school, so we are free to leave and go to another school. I think the rule is a bit stupid, it's not like it affects anything much. I could understand if I had a mohawk, or skinhead, but long hair?
Maybe the schools should just meet half way and let him have long hair as long as it's clean (and maybe tied back). He looks a bit greasy in that picture.

[Smilodon]

I really can't see the problem with long hair. As some have already pointed out: Girls have long hair. I wonder if a short haired girl would get suspended...

When i think about it, I have a teacher who have long hair at the moment. I also had that in primary school and on my vocational school. (My electronics teacher had hip long hair, and a pink guitar. On a few occasions he brought a pretty powerful sound system and played a little for us. This wasn't very popular at the rest of the school, though He was also a very good teacher )

[teamtd11]

I used to get the same problem when i got my hair cut to a number 1. They said it was to short

[supermonkey]

The school has an established dress code. The student violated the dress code. That just about sums it up for me. If he truly identifies himself by his hair, then perhaps he should approach the school board with a formal request to alter the dress code. He might have had better success if he'd drawn up a petition and obtained signatures from students and parents. Now he's backed the school administration into a corner. I imagine they'll go down fighting, if they back down at all.

My high school had a very basic dress code: shorts had to come to the knees, no exposed midriff, no open-toe shoes in the chemistry classroom Besides a few other minor rules, that was about it. I saw some students show up wearing slippers and pajama bottoms. By my senior year, the dress code became more stringent due to the number of kids that just didn't bother with their appearances.

-monkey