<p>If I were the boy’s parents and he wanted a mohawk and I had no objections I would let him get a more military looking cut and make him comb it flat for school. After school he could spike it up. No big deal. Amazing to me that these things make the paper.</p>
<p>Do you know how many kids get sent home every day in our district for dress/hair code infractions?! Geez. Big deal.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom–The grammar spoken is dialectical. Standard English is considered one form of English by linguists. Their meaning is perfectly clear. If they write that way, it will be a professional hindrance, no doubt about it. But many people are perfectly adept at code switching.</p>
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<p>Seems like a rule that is easily abused with selective enforcement.</p>
<p>If the kid’s hairstyle is too “extreme”, then some people might not want to visit some universities, even those not known for counter-culture type of stuff.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html]Info.sjsu.edu[/url”>http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html]Info.sjsu.edu[/url</a>]</p>
<p>The parents are stupid because the haircut is stupid-looking. In my opinion.</p>
<p>I still think the school should have ignored it. This kid will probably have enough problems.</p>
<p>Sorry I asked. :(</p>
<p>The bad grammar was in direct quotes. In other words, that’s what the lady said - verbatim. I think it tells something about the whole incident.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, yes, I suppose it COULD be abused. I have not seen that happen much. Kids don’t typically get sent home for a few streaks of pink, but for a mohawk they always do. Don’t know what it is about a mohawk that just really gets the school going! :)</p>
<p>I wonder if people of a certain age associate a mohawk with the movie “Taxi Driver?”</p>
<p>If they sent him home, then it counts as a suspension unless he’s sick.</p>
<p>Public schools in this country have a significant problem with excluding kids in the classroom in informal ways, such as calling a parent to pick them up, or having them spend the morning in the office, that aren’t documented anywhere. These kinds of exclusions are disproportionately applied to kids in certain categories, even for kids who engage in the same behavior (e.g. a low income kid is more likely to be sent home than an affluent kid, even if they do the same thing). The result is that the kids who need to be in the classroom the most, are often there the least.</p>
<p>In an effort to address this, and to collect data on the problem, there is work on standardizing definitions of suspension. Generally, if you say a child can’t be at school, and it’s not due to illness, then that child is suspended.</p>
<p>Cromette–I know it is in direct quotes. I’m saying that it’s clearly dialectical and says nothing about the lady except she’s probably poor and not well educated. It says she’s acquired a grammar that’s standard to what she’s heard. I live in a town where many people speak a way standard to them and how the people around them speak. Just like we more educated folks do. It says nothing about their character or intellect. (I think commenting on someone’s spoken grammar does not reflect well on the commenter.)</p>
<p>I have very good friends who are from Detroit and speak similarly to this when speaking informally. When writing and speaking in formal situations, they can do so “properly”. Many are dean’s list students at places like Michigan. </p>
<p>I think it’s quite sad that people are judging them based on how they speak. You can’t control the language you were exposed to and raised with. Even the most educated people find their “native tongue” to be the most comfortable.</p>
<p>Shave his head and dress him in baggy jeans with his underpants showing. That would be more in keeping with the public school dress code.</p>
<p>Mohawks were pretty popular with the little wrestlers. Teachers here wouldn’t have even looked twice much less consider it a distraction.</p>
<p>romani: people WILL judge others by the way they speak. Also, by things such as table manners, body language and dress. It might not be fair, it might feel elitist…but it is what it is. And, ALL those things can be modified.</p>
<p>dietz, never said they wouldn’t judge. I said it was sad. Still think it is.</p>
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<p>garland, I understand that, and think that it’s sad and unfortunate that it happens. You don’t need a college education to learn proper language usage and grammar, so it really should have no relation to how well educated one is. I made no judgment about their character or intellect.</p>
<p>romani & garland - I’m a country girl, I have a country twang to my voice, sometimes my casual grammar is poor and reflects the vernarcular common to this area. But when I speak to a reporter, or to a school official, or in a formal work setting, or somewhere I know I might be quoted, I adjust. Voice and twang are one thing, and often cannot be overcome completely without training. Words in the wrong places and incorrect word usage is a whole different thing.</p>
<p>CuriousJane - I have found the OPPOSITE to be true. At our school, children whose parents will not push back at the school, but WILL pick their kid up for an infraction are more often called than parents that the school KNOWS will give them grief, or just plain will not respond. Often times girls who wear skirts slightly short will have parents called when there are underpriveleged girls who are repeat disciplinary problems who get by with much more provocative dress just because it’s a big hassle, and they know the behavior will just continue anyway regardless of what’s done. My daughter was sent home for wearing spandex jeans (I could have pushed back, but did not) but she was NOT suspended. She came home, changed and went back to school within 30 minutes. She was NOT suspended.</p>
<p>Magnetron, baggy pants are not allowed here either. If a kid has baggy pants, they make him wear a rope around his waist to hold his pants up and he gets a disciplinary write up. Multiple infractions can result in after-school or in-school detention/suspension. And yes, we DID have some sports teams that were allowed to do some different things. Our swim team all shaved their heads and our wrestling team also got mohawks, but they got permission before they did it - and it was a team thing.</p>
<p>I don’t understand what’s sad about a legitimate dialect. I do understand that knowing standard English is often necessary for progress in our society. I also understand that not knowing this often reflects a lack of education, and probably being mostly surrounded by others with a lack of education. So having had the benefit of one, I try not to judge those that haven’t. </p>
<p>And I have run into plenty of successful people who speak with a dialect. I just don’t see why it’s necessary to comment on the family’s verbal “flaws” as if that speaks to the case in some way.</p>
<p>I think MOST people with a high school education know how to speak properly. The fact that she has her son’s hair cut that way in spite of the school rules, then calls the press when he gets sent home until the hair is fixed AND chooses to speak with terrible grammar while talking to the press…yes, that tells me something about her.</p>
<p>Not that she’s a horrible person, or anything like that - but she strikes me as at least slightly immature, attention seeking, flippant and not very attentive to appropriate behavior…and that’s just my initial impression.</p>
<p>We all form initial impressions of people based on our limited exposure to their actions and how they present. Right, wrong or indifferent - we do. I’ll admit it - I form initial impressions of people. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong and sometimes I just don’t understand. But it doesn’t make them less valuable of a person in my eyes, it’s just an impression of their personality, not their worth. No biggy.</p>
<p>Very few people in this country have the excuse that they are isolated in a vacuum today. Plenty of children of immigrants learned proper English despite having little or no exposure to it at home or in their neighborhoods. In today’s world of instant communication, I have to think there are likely learning issues for people who can’t or don’t pick up the basics of proper speech and grammar after twelve years of mandatory public education. </p>
<p>As for this story, it doesn’t deserve the press, and if there was no dress code, they should do what they like, but I privately take issue with any parent who dresses a five year old like a mini adult with the justification that this was the child’s choice. No, it’s yours.</p>
<p>I have family members that let their kids have mohawks for fun on weekends. They even help them put the Halloween spray coloring in it. Kids are six and two. But when its time for school or day care the hair normal.</p>
<p>Fendergirl,</p>
<p>Exactly. My nephews used to sport them in the summer. Come the school year, they got buzzed into a military cut and eventually it all grew back into a “normal” standard little boy’s haircut.</p>
<p>It was just good fun for summertime.</p>