Middle and high school students are making strong demands for the freedom to grow their hair how they desires. There is an online petition demanding the abolition of limits on hair length, and there is a large open-air event scheduled for next month. A few days ago the site with the petition had so much traffic that crashed, so you get a sense of how much interest there is.
Currently every school has the authority to regulate hairstyles on its own. Most of them, however, just follow the unilaterally determined standards drafted elsewhere and punish students who are in violation. Last year the National Human Rights Commission officially recommended that schools minimize the regulations so that they do not infringe on students' rights. The authorities followed suit and ordered as much, but many schools are not observing the new guidelines. Even now, students can have their hair shaved forcibly and play hide and seek with teachers assigned to catch violators. In other words, education is still happening in some places as if schools were barracks. It is only natural that students are reacting to such violent practices.
It is the prejudice of society's elders that schools will be full of confusion if the restrictions are lifted. People need to examine any biases that consider hair with individual character to be a problem. You do not hear reports of misbehavior or lower performance at schools that have done away with hair regulations completely. One middle school in Seoul plans to punish students who protested about the regulations this week. It is only an attempt to confine young people in an oppressive culture to try and prevent them from expressing themselves freely by responding with disciplinary action.
Self-governance without communication is only unilateral high-handedness. It is an embarrassment to create "student associations" in name only and make them play a supporting role for the school and then call it "student autonomy." In principle, hair regulations should be abolished. If there are going to be "self-determined" regulations, then students should actually be allowed to participate in the decision making process.
The Hankyoreh, 22 April 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Abolish School 'Hair Restrictions' |
