Jason Smith, principal of Stonybrook Intermediate and Middle School in Indianapolis, Indiana, understood the feeling. And that’s why it’s not important to jump into action for one of his students, Anthony Moore.
Moore wore a hat, which contradicted the school’s dress code. After the student talked to a dean for about 30 minutes, Smith was asked to step in.
“I sat across from him and asked, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you defiant, why are you refusing to take off your hat? It’s a pretty simple request,’ ‘Smith said.” And he explained that his parents took him to go chop and he does not like the results. ”
Smith said he and the dean thought his hair looked fine. ‘But you know he’s a 13 [or] ’14-year-old child, 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 old,’ and I showed him pictures of the hair I had cut from my son, and of me cutting at college. And I said, “If I run home and get my clippers and fix your line, will you go back to class?” Smith said. “He hesitated, but then he said yes.”
So in the snow, Smith drove back home to get his haircuts and brought them to his office to get Moore’s head up while his parents asked permission to touch his hair.
Tawanda Johnson, Moore’s mother, said she thought the gesture was wonderful.
“He (Smith) handled it very well to prevent him from getting into trouble at school,” she said. “I’m just glad he could handle it without … being suspended at school.”
‘Just since I was a black man myself and came through that culture, and you know, I really think girls at that age matter [means] appearance can then matter. “He was afraid he would be laughed at and we were pretty sure no one would notice, but he was looking through his lens,” Smith said.
Smith made sure he examined Moore throughout the day and found that he was learning and that he was not wearing his hat after the touch.
“All behavior is communication and if a student is struggling, we need to ask ourselves what happened to this child instead of what is wrong with the child,” Smith said. “What is the child’s need to provide, and the future of urban education rests on that question?”
Smith said the result was that he usually did not follow the dress code, would be suspended at school or picked up by a parent, which Smith said could have prevented him from being in front of a classroom teacher and teaching him give. he deserves, so it worked out really well. ‘