Here's a little story I wrote for/ read to my students when it's time to model the personal narrative process. Or learn about the many modern faces of transcedentalism. It's made to read aloud and display a simple accomplishable style for various levels of learners...in case you notice that the diction is somewhat different from the usual Miss Lady.
A Disruption to the Educational Environment
From the very beginning…wait…no…from some time in middle school, I was a rule breaker. Halloween seventh grade, due to it being 1987, I dressed up as a “punk rocker.” Blue hair and safety pin covered jeans really worked for me. So did the eye rolls I got from prissy popular girls. For that reason I stayed in costume for the rest of the year more or less. I took a break from such rebellion in 8th grade because I had gotten really good at styling and frying my 80’s mall bangs into place, perhaps better than any other girl in the school, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could receive some validation from my classmates since this was the standard that all girls were judged by in the late 80s. I guess that didn’t work out, cause I don’t remember being popular or liked outside my small group of lightly nerdy friends. At the end of the year I remember telling my friend Tien, “I’d rather be exotic than pretty, anyhow.”
Much to my mother’s dismay, I proceeded with that plan by spending most of the 9th grade filtering all the non-black clothes out of my wardrobe and adding black lipstick & nail polish, pale pale make-up, and striped tights to the mix. By the 10th grade even this wasn’t exotic enough for me. I decided that a few costumes would also be required. Bathrobes, psychedelic 60s dresses, and paisley face painting, nothing was beyond me. I needed to be a freak even to the freaks.
My mother, who does not ever like to cause trouble or call attention to herself, no longer knew what to do with me or what to make of my outfits. So when I breezed out of my bathroom one morning dressed as a tree on fire, she just shook her head and let me sashay towards the bus stop. At that point a green and brown outfit might have seemed preferable to her. Hair sculpted into a 8 inch flames and sprayed orange, burning tree branches delicately water-colored onto my forehead, orange lipstick paired with blazing eye shadow created from my “fete o fire” shadow quad…what were all of these things in comparison to studded dog collars and my black velvet cloak? She was numb to her freak of a daughter. How could she possibly tell what was too much?
She couldn’t tell, but Mr. Mojica, one of our ever changing assistant principals, he was pretty sure he could tell. My bus was the first one on campus and the minute I walked in the door, he was shuffling me, the so called “YOUNG LADY”, into the front office and radioing for back-up or something. Freaks were troublesome on any day. I was an emergency.
“This is unacceptable”…”It’s not fitting for a young girl”… “We DO NOT allow hair colors that do not occur naturally”… “a disruption to the educational environment!”
All these things were spoken to my surly stony face. First I tried explaining to them that the students who were so easily distracted were totally stupid, and therefore not as deserving of an education as myself… if at all. This was not very effective.
My mother was called. “Ms. Hendrix? Yes, your daughter looks like a freak. We can’t educate her. Can you come get her out of our way? Thanks.” It went something like that. Mr. Mojica reported that she was on her way. I was not leaving. I made that clear.
Additional principals were rotated in for their turn at bat with the freak. While Mr. Dibinsky was explaining that the school was protecting my safety, helping me to avoid bullying, harassment, and violence, by policing my freakness, I had an idea. Which was remarkable. At this point, I had turned not living up to my academic potential into an art form. Teachers talked all day and I barely learned a thing. I produced just enough work to maintain my status as an honor student and that was it. The word “disobedience” must have woken me up one day in history class though, because as I was sitting there listening to Mr. Dibinsky’s flawed reasoning, I had a flash memory of learning about Henry David Thoreau’s protest against paying taxes to a government he found to be unfair. I was clearly in the exact same situation.
I launched into this new platform:
“ I cannot follow a rule that I am opposed to. I have a moral obligation that requires me to object to your rule.” Damn honor students. I would make them sorry they ever tried to educate me.
The details aren’t necessary, but trust me, I was very persuasive. The administrators were unflinching. My mother arrived. I sat firm. Then she cried. I caved. Yes, I caved and with much shame I went home to wash my hair and change into a black dress topped by a 1960s swim cover-up. All capped off by black lipstick, something that was just inside the perimeters of the dress code.
After returning to school, I cried with my friends at the horror that I experienced. I commiserated with my English teacher who said “They just don’t get your creativity.” And even though it led to me discovering that he stank, I was delighted to get a consoling hug from a black- clad boy that I sorta liked cause he sorta liked me back or first or something.
I was pissed, but just as the rejection of my stupid middle school peers caused me to explore myself through fashion and hairstyling, this experience defined me too. I wasn’t my classmates. I didn’t share their values and I certainly didn’t value what the admin valued. I did, and still do, value personal expression above baseless, subjective, and ineffective rules.
So…now, I’m the teacher. My days are spent bothering students to bring their books, to plan out an essay that I can only hope they are interested in, and to stop disrupting the educational environment by talking to their friends. “Do you think this is a party?” “This is not McDonald’s Playland!” I’m an agent of the administration…or so they think.
I have to tell you that I wrote this during faculty meeting. “Folks, we gotta catch these dress code offenders early in the day. Everyone has to work together to enforce this consistently.” I hear others ask, “What about hats?”…”Are we going to do anything about all this cleavage?” … “What are we doing about baggy pants?”
It’s funny. I’ve come all this way. Beauty school, college, master’s degree, more college, 2 careers, Denton
I sigh and wonder what we are doing to promote artistic expression and creative freedom. Should I follow my district’s mandated curriculum? Will it turn my students into free thinkers? What if a standardized test gets in the way of what I know is right for my them? If one of my students wants to cross dress this year, will I stand up for them if the administration balks? What will happen to me if I do? As always, I wonder if it is my job to follow the rules.
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