What’s Trending:Teacher cuts student’s hair

Thu, February 09, 2012 - 1:20 PM

The Nation’s Online Editor Carol Martindale looks at What’s Trending today in Barbados.

The story making the rounds this morning is about the teacher at Alexandra School who cut a student’s hair.

According to the mother, the boy left home with the “muff” he had been wearing for years, and returned with it off and his hair in patches.

The teacher told the parent that he was acting on the instruction of principal Jeff Broomes who had reportedly spoken to the boy on three occasions about his hair.

Readers weighed in early this morning on this matter.

Aelland Willins: “I’m so sure that cutting that hair wasn't in the teachers job description.”

Cheryl Moore: “What? Surely the teacher didn't cut the child's hair. Does that amount to some chargeable offence? If it doesn't it should! That sounds like something that happened in the days when blacks had little rights. At most the child should have been sent home until he got an acceptable haircut. But an unskilled teacher asked to perform the task with God knows what presumably unsanitized device and without his parent/s knowledge or approval is unacceptable!”

Kathie Daniel: “If this child was Rastafarian and had dreadlocks, what would have happened if someone had forcibly cut his hair?”

Julie-Ann Bowen: “No one has the right to put a blade to a child's head in school. How sanitary was the device use to cut his hair? What if an accident occurred and his hair removed? This act lacks a lot of common sense…”

Hester Simpson: “I wait and see what will happen this time.”

Cheryl Moore: “The issue is not if the child was wearing the correct hair cut! We are past that! The issue now is, were appropriate steps taken to correct the infraction?”

carolmartindale@nationnews.com