Wednesday, January 7, 2015

She Touched Her Hair & Her Heart


I have never understood, and I will never understand the preoccupation that some people have with hair. 
As far as II'm concerned as long as you run a comb through it, and you don't roam the streets looking like some sort of wild animal, it shouldn't be a big deal. I guess it's just one of those things that I'm not meant to understand. The following was posted on social media by a well-meaning teacher.

"So one of my students came to school today with her hair full of knots, lint, and ridiculously tangled. It looked like it hadn’t been touched the entire holiday break…so my classroom became a salon. The photo on the left is before, and the right after. It just broke my heart so badly that I refused to let her leave school today the same way she came. When I finished she looked at herself and said “aww so pretty” … the beauty is that she is normally non-verbal. So now I’m crying lol. My day has been made!”

In a way this teacher may have over stepped her bounds. After all school is not a beauty salon, and teachers are not responsible for their students personal hygiene or lack their of. But if we look beyond the shallow surface it is important to note that the child who was nonverbal began to speak because her teacher not only cared enough to think about it, but she cared enough to actually do something about it. Was her intention to spark a dialogue between herself and her student? Probably not. But her unorthodox approach to child care caused a nonverbal child to suddenly become verbal. 
Not all lessons are taught with the assistance of a curriculum, or a state mandated policy. Often times the most vauable lessons of all are the lessons that are not meant to teach. But those that are meant to inspire.

PR

2 comments:

  1. RIGHT ON! As a former CPS worker, the child is probably not receiving other things that she needs--proper clothing, clean clothes, baths, shampoos, nutritious food. I wonder if parents/guardians learned anything from this? I wonder if they even care about how they (as parent/guardian) are perceived? Heaven help the child!

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  2. So true! But everybody is fixated on her hair and they miss the point.

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