Teacher cuts pupil's hair, mum files police report

To return to the original article, I cannot help, but fault the teacher. Cutting someone's fair without permission and with the possible threat of academic consequences is abhorrent and would be considered criminal where I live (USA). It's assault plain and simple. It is the parent's responsibility to ensure the child is appropriately prepared for school in accordance with whatever the local rules are.

If you want to argue about the necessity of school uniformity, I believe that it should only matter in business relations with customers. I never personally found clothing a distraction or even an interest. Whether I was in uniform or not had absolutely nothing to do with my academic performance and that should be the only thing that matters in a public school.

I understand why it is relevant in business. If your job involves direct relations with the customer in any way, you should conform to their expectations for professionalism because it is your JOB to make them happy. Fortunately, I'm only expected to be "California casual", khakis and collared shirt. I wouldn't relish having to deal with anything more formal.

Plus one. You basically said everything I thought about on my way home to put on this post.

Also note that the haircut topic started to veer off because we defined the haircut to be part of the school uniform, which leads to conformity, which leads to the Hijab and Islam... I'm at fault for that last part but it is a valid example of a defined clothing that would be considered conformity in an institution (in this case a religious one).

I don't think we should discuss the issue about freedom and conformity here because it strays too far and has a low flash point.

As for the bit on communist and China thing and tying that to education in Asian countries, I'm going to drop it because that's going to destroy this thread. Shall we go back to the teacher and the school system instead? I'm going to state my stand again: the student should be punished, and having the hair being cut is one of the possible punishments that are available to schools, but the teacher is wrong because I believe the teacher hasn't gone through (all) the correct channels before meting out a punishment. Let's focus on the topic on hand.

I'll also repeat the point that schools in SG want to be more... professional (those top schools like mine get a little crazy occasionally about this). The issue about image of students presented to the public... well gets a little too extreme occasionally. But I don't think this is the case for the current situation.

In this situation, the school rules about uniform and haircut are grounded based on... hmm the best guess is still culture and the traditional Asian education system (i.e. still culture). It isn't tied to communism because not all parts of Asia have communist history but yet having a defined school uniform etc. is part of school rules in so many parts of Asia (within reason of course, so things like cost in poorer parts of countries aren't counted). To tell the truth, I don't know what the basis of the rule is founded on, and there are no practical reasons to it, so culture is my best guess.

In the western context what you wear isn't important, and in all practical sense this would be the case - universities and polytechnics don't have a defined school uniform (don't count blazers) too so it is quite true that what you wear is not important, or virtually independent, of your academic abilities. Red, blue white, checkered, jeans, skirt, khakis blah blah - a book shouldn't be, and can't always be, judged by a cover. But I believe even the UK schools have school uniforms - come on I study in the UK so obviously I can tell what's a school uniform in the UK too! So what is it to say that this issue of conformity and uniform code is confined to an Asian situation? Well... you could call those schools as backwards then, but I don't see much differences in performance of the students either.

But also take note that education in school is more than just teaching and learning from books etc.; it also involves interactions between peers and teachers. If your school has a school uniform ruling and you wear something out of norm, then it makes you stick out and that will change how people interact with you - make you more popular, make you ostracised etc. - and this can affect the academic learning in school. A school is effectively a mini-society - live by the rules, and/or live along the rules; live against the norms and... well... get the popcorn.

/edit: I apologise for the long post, but I wish to keep this discussion focused closely on the issues that matter most, while giving a strong argument on all the points that matter. Also, thanks Ray for your edit.

Hadriel