Students don’t often enjoy school rules, but sometimes these requirements are viewed as archaic, and people refuse to put up with them in the 21st century.
Although some rules make sense like not wearing jewelry during sports but sending someone home with too much makeup or because they’ve smuggled a certain soda drink in seems like a waste of resources and valuable lesson time for the youngsters involved.
Often the rigidity by which schools operate when it comes to a child’s appearance goes against that time in their lives when they want to be different and express themselves.
One young boy, Farouk James, has faced some issues because of his hair.
Farouk is no ordinary 9-year-old boy living in the city of London, England. This young model has been taking over the covers of magazines, doing campaigns, and walking the catwalks in fashion shows across the world, from New York to Florence. The elementary school student has been working as a model for quite some time now and has sparked a lot of interest due to his amazing hair. His long, curly locks have made him a standout amongst other child models, and amongst models just in general.
However, his school officials didn’t feel the same as all of his online fans.
When his mom, Bonnie James, started looking for schools for Farouk to attend in the future, she struggled – and it was Farouk’s hair that was the problem. One of the two schools that turned Farouk away was The London Oratory School – a school that Bonnie’s other son, now 23, had attended.
Ironically, Bonnie experienced a different kind of problem with her other son – the school once warned her that she’d cut her son’s hair “too short”.
Bonnie said forcing children to cut their hair is against their human rights.
“I will not give up trying to persuade governments to put legislation in place to protect children from these outdated, punishing rules,” his mom Bonnie wrote on Instagram.
“Farouk hasn’t done anything wrong and YOU REJECT HIM! He will say good bye to his friends as they all get accepted into the schools he so desperately wants to attend.”
This situation even prompted Bonnie to start a Change.org petition to ban hair discrimination in the U.K.
“We’re getting a real team together and calling it the Mane Generation,” Bonnie said. “We’re going to fight this until these rules get changed. And it’s globally, not just domestically in the U.K.”
An Instagram account featuring Farouk and his life as a fun-loving boy and child model is managed by his mom and has more than a quarter of a million followers.
But despite all the love and support he gets online they still receive negative comments. After an appearance on the popular U.K. TV morning show ‘This Morning’ to discuss the family’s struggle to find a school that will accept Farouk and his hair, Bonnie said she received many negative comments.
Bonnie argues that the appearance rules for girls and boys at schools are archaic and in some cases racist with many schools banning dreadlocks and braids.
The mom says she will never stop fighting for acceptance of Farouk and his hair and all the other children who are discriminated against for wanting to express their cultural heritage and who they are.
Watch the video below for more details:
Source: AWM
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