PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

I wasn't going to go to school today, but I thought since I didn't go to the assembly on Monday that I'd go check out what is going on before going home to clean up for the weekend and the PCT visit. I never thought I'd see what I did and am still a little shocked about it myself.

We have uniforms here at school. Most students cant really show too much personality with their bodies other than their hair or shoes. Now that may all be over now.

On Fridays, it is known as "Rags Day" which means that for a small price, kids can wear whatever clothes they want and not the uniform. This usually is a great day because you can tell that people, especially the older kids, put some effort into their appearance.

Today, the principal decided to tell kids that their hair had to be "normal" from now on. Exactly what "normal" is I don't know, but these kids better find out. Otherwise they will be put on display for public embarrassment and shame.

She called out every kid that had gel in their hair, whomever didn't have their hair combed nicely. She told them they needed to gel their hair straight and others to just comb their hair. Some kids she told to get a trim.

This was bad enough. Actually pulling them up in front of the rest of the school for humiliation may have been too far. Most of these kids had gel in their hair, making it very hard for a comb to slide through. That didn't matter. She forced it through. With each stroke of the comb, she took away a small part of their individuality in a culture that doesn't leave room for much in the first place.

The flakes of hardened hair that fell out onto the ground were pieces of those kids excitement on why they come to school. If you cant express yourself in anyway, how will you do it? If a kid is failing all his classes and never gets noticed, but on Friday he can look nice and get members of the opposite sex to look their way, why should we stop them? What happens to the boys that we forbid from doing this? We have some problems, but take away the only way for these kids to express who they are and they will find other ways to be noticed. Then we will have other, bigger discipline problems than we currently do.

Some kids may have need a small trim. Others may have too much gel. But public humiliation is not the way to do this. Instead of worrying about what is going on on top of their heads, we ought to be worrying about what is going on inside their heads. Test scores keep dropping, but the scores getting lower aren't important. However, the amount of hair is.

I've heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I like this definition. Our teachers preach to the kids all the time about growing up to be somebody. To make Belize proud and more importantly to make Yo Creek proud. Then the frustration begins when most of them seem to have simple problems like saving money or holding down a job.

If they are supposed to be different and stand out in a crown so they get noticed, how are we reinforcing that? We tell them to be exactly the same. From smiles to books to uniforms to shoes to the food they eat and finally to the way they style their hair. Everything is supposed to be uniform in an effort to make a streamline machine of efficiency. But somewhere that doesn't happen. We tell them to all be the same, and when they turn out to be so similar, we wonder why. Why is it that so many kids have the same problems? It couldn't be how we teach reading. It couldn't be the uniforms. It must be the haircuts.

It's hard enough being a 13 year old kid trying to fit in without being pulled out in front of all your peers to be laughed at. We tell them to be different and then scold them when they are. We tell them to be the same and get confused when they listen. When they don't, they are acting up. This is confusing just for me. I cant imagine being 13 having all this stuff thrown at me that changes every week. The times they are a changin'. Everything goes with it too. From the corn field of the Midwest to the sugar cane fields of Orange Walk, everything is changing. It's about time we allow hairstyles to do the same.

I've got a pair of scissors at my house. Anyone need a haircut? I promise to make you as "normal" as I know how, but no matter how hard I try, I still seem to think the main priority should lay whats under the skull, instead of how people decide to fashion and style whats on top of it.