A recent decision by the acting principal of The Lodge School Robin Douglas, to enforce a rule in the school’s dress code has sparked robust debate.
Last week, Douglas ordered the male students of the 298-year-old school to remove all facial hair or face possible suspension.
His decision was not widely supported and drew the ire of parents who felt the implementation of the rule was unnecessary and backward.
Douglas was also chided on social media, with Barbadian economics’ own Bearded Wonder Jeremy Stephen calling on those who felt aggrieved by the rule to challenge it at the level of the Ministry of Education.
On its Instagram page, a group calling itself beardgang246 also opposed the move, posting: “It is a bad idea on many levels, from following systems that don’t benefit us to affecting young men’s self-esteem.”
The school’s sudden decision to ban boys from wearing facial hair would have come as a surprise.
And to make matters worse, the level of clarity from the principal was, not to put too fine a point upon it… bushy.
When contacted for a comment, Douglas merely responded: “It is written clearly in The Lodge School’s handbook regarding the dress code that male students are not permitted to wear facial hair. As the principal, I was merely enforcing the school’s rules.”
In speaking to several parents, whose children attend The Lodge, there had been no prior communication about the matter.
Parents were not aware of a situation where males at the school were sporting untidy beards or moustaches, neither had they been notified of any such problem by the school.
It raised several questions.
If the school had been having issues with males wearing unkempt facial hair why were parents not notified?
Why were parents not given the option to ensure that facial hair was kept in a tidy manner, such as they are responsible for haircuts?
And if that was not the case, why the sudden move to ask them to remove all facial hair?
Interestingly enough, The Lodge School is one of this country’s original Sixth Form schools.
That essentially means that there are boys attending that school who are 17, 18 and even 19 years old.
Some of those students might have well-established beards and to ask them to shave all off, especially at a time when beards are a prized possession and are globally back in fashion – just as they were in the late Victorian era – is harsh.
Indeed, life is guided by rules. While they are some who will argue that school rules should be always followed and that a breach of common sense is itself a breach of school rules, as Lodge boys were told from day one, rules, whenever enforced, should be timely, pertinent and… well… commonsense.
But while the debate continues to rage on about whether the school was right or wrong in enforcing such a rule, a worrying element is continually being dragged into the debate: Principal Douglas’s bearded face.
For whatever reason, many have drawn attention to the principal’s own physical appearance.
While there have been arguments both for and against the rule being implemented, surely the fact that Principal Douglas sports dreadlocks and a beard is irrelevant to the conversation. Isn’t it?
The president of the Barbados Association of Principals of Public Secondary School (BAPPS) Juanita Wade pointed out that Douglas did not establish the rule, but merely enforced it, and should not be harshly judged for doing so.
Similarly to how students are governed by rules, Douglas as a principal and a civil servant, too, has to adhere to rules.
He is not a boss to himself.
So if the Ministry of Education as his “boss” has no issues with him donning dreadlocks or a beard he is well within his rights to do so.
It should not be central to the stance he has taken.
Nonetheless, let common sense prevail.
