When a student’s father is the school principal, it can be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on circumstances. My father was my principal for most of my public school years, and it generally gave me a feeling of security, but there were a few times when I wished that he didn’t have to know about my less-than-perfect behavior. The following incident happened when I was in the first or second grade and my two sisters were in upper elementary or Junior High, which were all in the same school complex.
My hair was blond, very straight and shingled in the back. If I ever had a curl it certainly was not natural. There was a time when my sisters decided to either wave or curl my hair, and since it was before setting gels and hairspray, a mixture of sugar and water was used to do the “holding” job! Do I need to tell you what happened when they tried to comb through it? Anyway, all you need to know before my intended story is that my hair was unquestionably straight.
Recess at school was often unorganized and unsupervised. Children could play on whatever equipment was around, or there were balls and long jump ropes available for group activities. Sometimes, the girls and boys segregated themselves and did their own thing, and sometimes they would play together. On this particular day, we girls were trying to play by ourselves. We started out just walking around, talking, and we ended up in an old shed in back of the school building which we liked to make into a playhouse. The shed was partially open, but even in the walls that it did have there were numerous ‘peepholes’, or in this case, ‘holler-holes’.
As soon as we girls got together and began to organize our activities, one little boy decided it would be fun to follow me around singing “She’s My Curly-headed Baby”. The only other part of the song that I remember is, “She’s from sunny Tennessee.”
Well, whether the boy liked me or not, my hair was certainly not curly and I was not from Tennessee. The message didn’t ring true, and I was very irritated at the whole scene. My friends began to prompt me to pick up a rock and throw it at the pest, but it was not until he persisted in following us through the halls, around the playground, and even stuck his face in the crevices of our playhouse, singing all the while. Enough is enough, so I picked up a black piece of coal and let it go in the young boy’s direction. To my immediate horror, blood began to gush from his forehead, and the teacher had to know…then the principal had to know…and even my sisters learned about it!
I was thoroughly ashamed of myself and fearful. At first, the fear was for the injured boy, but when one of my sisters discussed the incident with me, my fear turned toward myself. She warned me that there might be a police investigation into the incident after school. Well, I was scared enough to go home and hide in a closet, but no policeman ever came, and I don’t even recall my teacher nor my principal being particularly harsh with me. Perhaps, it was my good record, or maybe they just understood human nature in little boys and girls… For whatever reason they did not punish me, I am grateful. I firmly believe that my punishment was sufficiently severe when I saw the blood gush from that forehead, knowing that **I **had caused it!
Fear is a powerful force that can be used for either good or evil. Fear of punishment could prevent wrongdoing, or it could cause one to lie and commit other wrongs in order to avoid being found out. Fear of hurting someone could be used to prevent abusive behavior, but taken to the extreme, it could increase the jeopardy of a threatening situation.
My sister, as many siblings have done through the years, used the threat of a police officer to create fear designed to prevent the repetition of a bad deed. In spite of this incident (or because of it), I managed to develop a rather healthy regard for law-enforcement agents.
I believe the security of having parents that deal justly and with understanding, when a child’s behavior is unacceptable, helps the child develop a desire to do well.