Personally, I don’t see the harm in having pink hair, or blue hair, or green hair. Maybe I just don’t understand the problem other than “that’s the rule.” Do they consider it a distraction, similar to belly baring shirts and daisy duke shorts? Either way, I still don’t see the harm in hair color.

How did I miss this story? Go Heather Go! Down with school rules that call for unneeded conformity. What next–no one allowed to be anything but Southern Baptist in the Mt Grove district?

Look, I was one who demonstrated for the right of female students to wear pants to school and quit suffering the indignity of having to kneel to have their skirt lengths measured, so you know my feelings about this arbitrary crap. It’s a tribute to her father…get a grip. I don’t care for a lot of the highlighting and obvious fakeness many matronly women sport. Should we ban that too?

I’d rather talk about the missing white house emails that conveniently erased all evidence of corrupt activities this repub crew has engaged in over the past eight years. This chick’s pink hair has no effect on this nation’s future. The crooks in power systematically looting what we leave to the next generation does. I wanna talk about the 250 million Karl Rove has waiting to retire McCain’s campaign debt. That buys lots of loyalty. While the democrats have advanced past 1968 and Dick M Daley, the repubs want to turn the clock back to old white men behind the curtains pulling the sheeple puppets’ strings for their own advantage. Give me the honesty of terrorist bombs over this steal it piece by piece stuff.

Those of us who daily work with our youth anticipate there will be tension between traditional expectations and mores, vs non-traditional, eccentric, rebellious or out-of-the-mainstream behaviors. This tension between these distinct urges may suppress the youth’s expression of individuality. In youth, ESPECIALLY, expressing their individuality is an essential path to personal growth and an acceptable way to exert personal power, provided it is curbed as determined by pre-established rules and regulations.

We need to give our kids opportunities that will allow them to succeed as well as to fail. They can’t be allowed to live their adolescence in a cushioned world, protected by adults. And our kids have to learn that if they break the rules, they will have to pay the price. But the adult world needs to understand that they can’t make up the rules in the middle of the ballgame, and that established rules have a constructive purpose.

Every rule that comes out of a school administrator’s office cannot be counter-cultural. Certainly there are certain rules that are unavoidable. But let’s remember that the school’s chief objective is to educate, and the adult world cannot allow their personal preferences to get in the way of that objective!

Slugger is spouting that same liberal commie democrat crap that the AntiChrist Obama pushes. Don’t try and teach kids the importance of law and order, let them express themselves. Bull! They can express themselves by giving the right answers when asked a question. They can express themselves by doing as they are told and not asking questions. This is creating good citizens for the future. Maybe McCain will bring discipline and military bearing to our you peoples lives. As a war hero he should know how to mold young minds. Imagine what electing Obama will teach the kids.

Please explain how “…doing as they are told and not asking questions” expresses onesself. That was a joke, right?

The kid was warned last year to lose the color because of pink streaks, but this year she went all out with a whole head of pink hair. That kind of defiance speaks volumes. I feel sorry for school personnel who have to deal with disrespectful, defiant kids and parents who encourage and allow this kind of thing.

Its a distraction from what is going on in the classroom. I retired from teaching. That means I know nothing about the classroom. If you let one die their hair pink for her fathers death, you will have to let someone else do it because their cat died. Either way it is a distraction in the classroom. Going to school is a privilege that is not available to children all over the world. Rules and Regulations come with that privilege. The reason we have school boards and school administrators to regulate the school rules is to avoid distractions and controversy in the classroom. The least distractions by outside activity the better the classroom environment (hopefully). Regardless of why this girl is doing what she is doing, it’s against the rules at her school. If you let here do what she wants it will lead to letting everyone do what they want. Education will seize. I’m sure there is some other sensible way to honor her father than dying her hair.

I just posted this comment on the story. Would be curious for reactions here, too:

Just to stir the pot a little, I have a question: While I agree that rules are rules and they apply to everyone, nobody is addressing whether the rule itself is unreasonable. Is there a place for “civil disobedience”?

Kurt: I wonder, too, if the hair-color rule might be a bit unreasonable or at least non-productive. A certain well-established St. Louis private high school suffered in the 70’s because it offered a mandatory military program that required the boys’ hair to be trimmed above the ears. So, after school hours, the boys were branded. (As it turned out, many boys who were essentially anti-military were forced to attend the school because their parents forced them to. Didn’t make for a great learning environment! )There are so many issues and serious problems beyond seemingly harmless expressions of individuality that should be addressed during the teen years, and hair color and tatoos are probably not among them. In the absence of clearly defined, reasonable rules, we sometimes become strangely loyal to enforcing inconsequential trivia!