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Glad to see you admit your post was not fact based or objective!
FACT: This student knew the school policy before he CHOSE to go there
FACT: There are many public schools like the ones in my district, High Tech High School and MAST, which give an education far surpassing that of any homeschool. Unless you think homeschoolers typically have access to the Princeton plasma physics lab or 65' research vessel.
Burton— Not long ago, J.T. Gaskins was honored on his high school's "Wall of Fame" for perfect behavior.
Now he's doing school work from home after being suspended by the governing board of his charter school over the length of his hair.
School suspends cancer survivor over long hair he plans to donate | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com (http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120128/METRO/201280350/School-suspends-cancer-survivor-over-long-hair-he-plans-donate?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE - broken link)
Please note the OP ^ . No mention is made of the overall benefits of homeschooling. If you'd like to talk about that, please start a new thread. It's best instead of continuing off topic remarks, that one ignores them and address the OP.
As for being a Cancer survivor there are many out there who are lucky while many have not been so lucky.
My mother passed away from breast and Brain Cancer.
My dad passed away as a result of Bladder cancer and complications therof.
My oldest daughter passed away three yrs back from Breast Cancer..
I myself am a Cancer survivor (Thyroid) so do not look harsh on anyone that is in the same footing (so to speak).
Instead of being a little God of authority and pushing their own little agendas they should be more compassionate on the problems that Cancer causes and the good/bad points.
In a school of any size there will be some relative of a student who has a Cancer situation. Law of averages will show this to be true.
There was a time way back when men and women all wore long hair. Men also had beards that was the norm of the time period.
What is so bad that hair allowed to grow and kept clean is disallowed in todays society...be it a beard or head hair.
I agree with the school and think the boy is compromising his education for no good reason. He could create a fundraiser for locks of love or he could, as IKB0714 suggests, just wait a few months until he's done with HS. If this school has a dress code that he knew was enforced, why didn't he try to get that changed before he decided to buck the system? HIS hair is not something that's going to cure cancer and whether he donates it in one year, or two is not going make a lick of difference. A better use of his time would be convincing girls with already long hair to donate it and concentrate on his studies.
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality.
I could understand (maybe) if it was a learning distraction, but this is pretty ridiculous. The article mentioned nothing about ROTC, it mentioned nothing about any other conditions which would allow or disallow him to do this if it were for a good reason, etc.
I could understand (maybe) if it was a learning distraction, but this is pretty ridiculous. The article mentioned nothing about ROTC, it mentioned nothing about any other conditions which would allow or disallow him to do this if it were for a good reason, etc.
Bad publicity, for sure.
Apparently this is a charter school which, while publicly funded, sets its own rules, one of which deals with hair length.
As a charter this student accepted the rules when he chose to attend it since he could very well go to his zoned high school.
This is what many posters on here always talk about: set up a learning environment where the kids learn like they used to. One of those rules from years ago dealt with hair length. The school is only doing what the clientele demanded.
There once was a time when some unimportant rules were enforced on a case by case basis, this is on of those cases. When you have educators and administrators blindly enforcing such rules, it frees them from having to use somethings they're sorely lacking, decision making ability and common sense.
Did you all read this from the article? School suspends cancer survivor over long hair he plans to donate | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com (http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120128/METRO/201280350/School-suspends-cancer-survivor-over-long-hair-he-plans-donate?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE - broken link)
Quote:
Gaskins says he plans to wait until after graduation in May to cut his hair; the time coincides with his last annual visit for a blood screening at the cancer clinic.
His hair is 2 1/2 inches long now and it has to be 10" long to be eligible to donate. My hair would not grow 7 1/2 inches in three months. I think this started off as a lark and he's digging the publicity.
I'm all for policy changes and I think he and his family have a good idea, that if students want to grow their hair long then they should be able to sign a pledge to do so and then grow it. However, this guy not only wants to grow his hair long, he wants to maintain the style he has. The rep from the school said,
Quote:
"Since his hair isn't very long yet, Kneer said he proposed that Gaskins use styling gel, put the hair in cornrows or simply comb it to comply with the rules."
"I need his hair out of his eyes and off the collar," Kneer told the Associated Press. "I really want this boy to be back in school. I feel like combing his hair wouldn't be a big concession … He doesn't have hair down the middle of his back. It's an inch over his collar".
He's no Rosa Parks drawing a line in the sand, he's a teenager enjoying the spotlight.
I agree with the school, the boy chose to attend that school and the school has policies they expect students to follow. If you don't like those policies, go elsewhere. The fact that he had cancer is irrelevant to this issue but it sure drums up the sympathy votes. It sucks he had to deal with cancer but that doesn't give him a free pass to do whatever he wants.
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