Caprock Academy Would Rather Students Just Conform to the Hive....

A girl shaved her head in support of a friend who lost all of her hair to chemotherapy, and was rewarded for her brave, compassionate act by being expelled from school because her shaved head did not meet the dress code at her school.  

Look at that little delinquent....

Caprock Academy decided that compliance with their dress code was more important than any number of outstanding qualities that this act displayed, including:

Bravery – many of us adults have forgotten how terrifying the idea of standing out and being different was to us when we were 12 years old.  To show up for school with a shaved head, as a girl no less, was an invitation for all sorts of ugly things.  Kids can be nasty.  This girl was stunningly brave to do what she did; to choose to stand out like a sore thumb amongst her peers, something which is almost suicidal for a girl her age to choose to do, in support of a friend who needed all the support she could get.  This is bravery, gentle reader, on a level that our society does not grant opportunity for very often. 

"I added some coriander to my Hamburger Helper tonight!  How brave am I, right?"

Initiative – She didn’t ask for permission to do this.  She didn’t check to make sure it was okay with the authorities when she made a decision that affected her body and nothing else. She chose to take action to support her friend, because it was the right and moral thing to do, and that is a quality that we want to encourage in our children, not stifle, or heaven forbid, punish!

"How DARE you take initiative!  Don't you know that I don't want you doing
anything without getting permission first?!" Said no decent boss, ever.

Compassion – I’m told that young girls like their hair.  It was a sacrifice for her to cut her hair off, and she did it in order to support her friend; to ensure that her friend was not alone in her “otherness” and that someone was there with her when she went to face the scary world of pre-teenhood hairless and vulnerable.  And I quote:

Delaney loved what her friend did.

"It made me feel very special and that I'm not alone," she said.

Why would any thinking person choose to punish such an act? 

If there's anything that Caprock Academy hates, it' kids with cancer who
are momentarily happy and not feeling alone in the world.

It is more important to the “great” minds at Caprock Academy that this child fall in line, and not stand out or express any individuality and initiative; more important that she have a head of hair than show some compassion and support for her friend; more important that she do as she’s told than to do what is right. 

"Ve haf vays of makink you conform,"
Caprock Academy Principal Clink (anonymous source)

These are the minds that are teaching and informing our children in this day and age.  Minds which are so focused on conformity to the hive that they cannot stand any individualism whatsoever.  So dedicated to ensuring that the next generation of drones are compliant and do exactly as their told that any sign of a child thinking on their own, or acting without permission in any capacity whatsoever is grounds for expulsion. 

Is this really what we want in our children?  Mindless conformity, and compassion, initiative, and morality be damned? 

At the risk of Godwinizing, I could point out that the last generation of people who had those qualities didn’t quite turn out as well as expected.