This is Donovan's story! A little background,...Donovan is a straight A student, involved in lots of extracurricular activities. He studies martial arts seriously and he takes all kinds of responsibility at home. He has his moments, as all kids do, but overall I couldn't ask for a better kid.
When he was in 4th and 5th grades, he participated in the Accelerated Reader program. It's a program designed to get kids into reading, or further their reading. At the beginning of the year, they take a test to estimate their reading level and are assigned a range. Donovan tested in the freshman in college range, in 4th grade. However, they restricted him to the books in the library assigned to the 4th - 6th grade range. Fine, he dealt and he read the entire selcetion the library had to offer in that range over the course of the year.
PART 1:
The following year, he was tested again and tested up to the junior in college level. Once again he was restricted to the 5th - 7th grade range. He had read all the 5th and 6th grade level books the previous year so he was left with the 7th grade books, since they are not allowed to reread. They are required to read at least one book every 2 weeks, and take a computer-based test on it. However, if the kid finishs a book before that time frame is up, they must start another. Well, Donovan reads extremely fast and he read out his selection in less than one marking period. When he told his teacher, she refused to let him advance to the next level, but gave him zeros since he had no book to read. Basically, he was being punished for being a good reader. He was caught in a vicious circle. He had to read a book or get a zero, yet none were made available to him. When I called the school to find out what could be done, since the zeros were unacceptable, they were vicious. I called the school board and was told that was the way it was and nothing would changed. When I questioned the logic of this, I was told that my opinion did not matter, as we were a military family and contributed nothing to the school. Now, military families do not pay school taxes, but upon further research, I discovered that these schools make MORE money off military families than they get in school taxes!! In the end, he was not allowed to advance, but the zeros stopped. Each year, we have to go through this, hence why I am glad we will be leaving soon.
PART 2:
Until he started karate, Donovan was not very adventurous. Smart and friendly and outgoing, but not much of a risk taker. But he has developed a heck of a sense of self-confidence and self-assurance in the past year or so. He is very into writing, as well as karate, and spends hours writing stories. At the beginning of summer vacation, he decided that he wanted to dye his hair turquoise for the summer. It's just hair, so I agreed. Well, as the time for school approached, he asked if he could keep it during the year. Being amazed that he was bold enough, after some consideration I agreed, depending on the rules of the school. I read the dress code and student conduct from front to back and found nothing in it prohibiting it. At the end of the first day, the Vice Principal said that he should change it back, but did NOT tell him he had to. My feeling was that if it was really a big deal, she should have called or sent a note. Nothing! Yesterday (the 2nd day of schoo), he didn't even make it to 1st period. The principal called me and began to talk to me as if I was a 2yo that only spoke Chinese. Once I got him to stop that, he informed me that Donovan MUST change his hair back. When I pointed out that there was NOTHING in the code that stated it was prohibited, he didn't even know it wasn't there! It seems that a principal should know something like that! When I questioned the validity of the rule, he gave distraction as the reason. I can accept that, although my feeling is that those distracted are the ones with the prolem, not Donovan. I assumed he meant the other students. He told me that it was the teachers! Now, if a teacher is so distracted by something as inconsequential as hair color, then they have no business being teachers! His homeroom teacher screamed in front of the whole class about his hair color. Is that professional?! To top it all off, it was put into his school record as a disciplinary action! It seems to me that the term itself implies that a child misbehaved, but apparently their definition is different! Upon further discussion, I mentioned that I felt, with Donovan's track record, that he had earned the right to express his creativity and self-expression in the way that he had chosen. After all, there so many worse things that he could be into. But this kid is responsible, a good student, well-mannered. The principal informed me that Donovan was free to express himself and his creativity in an approved manner! An approved manner?!! Isn't that an oxymoron? Part of creativity is the ability to be unique, to be different! So I asked him to clarify what I understood from him, that he could be creative, as long as he was creative just like everyone else, a cookie cutter carbon copy. He had no answer. And here I thought that education was about teaching a child to think for themselves, not to think what they are told to think. These teachers are always telling these kids that they are all special and that being different isn't wrong, but to be appreciated. Hmm, then why is Donovan punished for it? The greatest irony is that on the same day that he is told all this, they had a class on self-expression and how different is okay. I guess it is okay, as long as it is approved.
CONCLUSION
We had to change his hair color, but instead of going back to his natural blonde, he rebelled and went for red!