By Coleen Armstrong

Coleen Armstrong is a teacher and author of two books.
 
One day Justin was fooling around with bleach and hair dye and discovered that if he combined black with copper-gold and then crimped his sandy blond locks with his fingers, he got a rather unusual effect. It took three hours and the help of two friends, but he eventually managed to cover most of his head with animal spots.
 
The next morning he came to school looking like a leopard.
 
You have to wonder what goes through a kid’s mind when he shows up for class in clear violation of his school’s dress code. So, on the following day, I asked him.
 
“I didn’t think I’d be sent home,” Justin explained. “It’s not fair! I see people wearing purple streaks and dreadlocks, and nobody says nothin’.”
 
Not exactly true. Somebody invariably says something. Pity the poor administrator who has better things to do with his day––but who also knows that if you allow spots and such, you’ll soon get hair that’s gelled three feet into the air and laced with neon-green confetti and blinking holiday lights.

Students, of course, view all restrictions as aimed solely at them, never at others––and anything they don’t see therefore doesn’t exist. They also see styles in isolation. What harm, then, in untied, loosened shoelaces? Adults, on the other hand, witness a panoramic history of dress-and-grooming debacles, ranging from no-jeans-or-t-shirts-whatsoever (1968) to no-jeans-ripped-to-shreds-with-underwear-showing (1993). They recognize progressions. Tank tops gradually dip lower. Shorts get shorter.
 
In 1979 those untied laces soon escalated to unbuckled belts. Which in time escalated to (I swear) half-unzipped flies. Sad to say, we didn’t see that one coming. The administration went ballistic and rightfully nipped the little trend right in the, um, bud. But how many man/woman hours were wasted on warnings and write-ups?
 
I’ve always believed that hair and clothing were two relatively harmless areas for teenagers to act out, assert their independence and annoy their parents. But two places where outrageous can’t be tolerated for even a moment are school and work.
 
By sheer coincidence, that same day that Justin returned with normal hair, a former student named Ken dropped by. He’d graduated the previous June. A year earlier he too had preached individual freedom of expression. Now, after six months of living in the adult world, he listened to Justin’s impassioned pleas–-and then snorted in dismay.
 
Justin took immediate offense. “Once I get my diploma and I’m out of here,” he huffed, “my hair will go right back to spots.”
 
“No, it won’t,” Ken laughed. He worked in a grocery warehouse, he explained, stocking freezers. Since hardly anyone saw him, it probably shouldn’t matter how he looked when he clocked in each morning. But it did. Few bosses allowed employees to paint their faces lavender or dye their hair orange, regardless of how behind-the-scenes their tasks might be. “You’ll always have someone else telling you what to do and how to look,” Ken declared.
 
But Justin was adamant. “Then I’ll go and find a job somewhere else! You know how long it took me to get that stuff out? I went home at 11:30 and worked on it till 8:00. It about killed me! I had blisters on my head afterward! That’s just wrong.”
 
I calculated. A total investment of nearly twelve hours from initial dye job to final repair. Twelve. And here was Ken, newly married, working as much overtime as possible to earn extra money for Christmas, and trying to figure out how to fit college into the picture before he and his wife could even think about having a baby.
 
What might he do with twelve spare hours?
 
Perhaps I’d invite Justin to come back in a year and meet with Ken again. It would be interesting to see if he’d changed his point of view. To find out if, between earning his own living, paying rent, buying food, making utility and car payments and also taking night school classes to improve his station in life, he’d become more like Ken than he’d ever imagined.
 
And if he still had enough time and energy left over to play with his hair.

Coleen Armstrong’s distinguished teaching career includes several state and national recognition awards.  She is the author of Please Don’t Call My Mother:  How Schools and Parents can Work Together to Get Kids Back on Track and The Truth about Teaching:  What I Wish the Veterans had Told Me.  Ms. Armstrong will present at the 4th Annual Reaching At Promise Students National Conference in February, 2009.