When an eighth grade student in Indiana found himself sent to the principal's office last week, it wasn't because he had disrupted class or acted out against his teacher. It was because he refused to take his hat off while inside the building.
In any other situation, the student would have received a stern-talking to, or perhaps would have faced disciplinary action, such as an in-school suspension.
Instead, his principal decided to look deeper into the situation and find the root cause behind the teen's refusal to remove his hat. And what he found inspired the educator to jump into action and lend a helping hand to a student in need.
As CNN reported, he was recently asked to step in and assist when one of his students spent 30 minutes refusing to take off his hat inside the building.
After a lengthy argument with the school's dean, Smith was called in to reinforce the school's policy of not wearing hats indoors.
After all, it's not very hard to take off a hat when you're asked to do so. So why was this now a situation involving the school's principal?
"I sat across from him and asked, 'What's wrong? Why are you being defiant, why are you refusing to take your hat off? It's a pretty simple request,'" Smith recalled.
Although Smith thought Moore's hair looked fine, he could tell the teen still felt too uncomfortable about his new look to let the other students see it.
So, the principal decided to help.
"I told him, 'Look, I've been cutting hair since I was your age,' and I showed him pictures of my son's haircuts that I did and some of me cutting hair in college," Smith told CNN. "And I said, 'If I run home and get my clippers and fix your line, will you go back to class?'"
Although the teen initially hesitated, he eventually agreed to the deal, and Smith drove home to retrieve his clippers.
A photo of the pair was shared to Facebook where it quickly went viral, amassing over 50,000 reactions and more than 26,000 shares from users who were touched by Smiths' commitment to his students.
"[Moore] didn't say straight out, but I feel like he didn't want to be laughed at," Smith told CNN. "The barbershop and hair cuts as Black males is very important in the community and looking your best and being sharp — it's just a cultural aspect."
He continued, "Just from my being a Black male myself and coming through that culture and you know, I really think girls matter at that age, which [means] appearance then could matter."
Moore's mom, Tawanda Johnson, applauded the principal for going out of his way to better understand how her son was feeling in that moment.
"[Smith] handled it very well to keep him from getting in trouble at school," she told CNN. "I'm just glad that he was able to handle that without...being put in in-school suspension."
"All behavior is communication and when a student is struggling, we need to ask ourselves what happened to this child instead of what's wrong with the child," Smith said. "What need is the child trying to get met and really, the future of urban education rests on that question."
h/t: CNN
