WIGGING OUT WITH A SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR

“You’re a boy, how come your hair is long?”

A lot of kindergarten kids asked me that, they’re gender stereotypes well in place.

It wasn’t only five-year-olds who thought that way, of course. An older sister was so shocked when she saw my long hair she wasn’t sure she would let me in her house.

Reason enough to wonder, then, what a school administrator would think if he knew the person who was to be in charge of a teacher-training program at an elementary school in his district wore his hair long. When you seek to do something in the schools different from the customary, you don’t want to provide unnecessary reasons for balking. As we all know, bureaucrats are skilled in that.

I'd decided it would be politic to go around and introduce myself to the administrator. But if he saw my pony tail what would he think? ‘One more radical education reformer--a university type, too--out to change the school system with hair-brained ideas’ (pun intended)?

I'd purchased a wig, which I half-seriously thought might come in handy sometime to cover up my long hair. That time had come. The reform for which I was struggling--getting some classroom reality into teacher training--was worth the dissimulation.

I parked across the street from the former schoolhouse where the area administration had its offices. It was one of those old schoolhouses with windows so high you couldn't see the street sitting down. (Gotta keep those kids from wanting to go outside!) The windows, though, would come in handy.

The wig--thick, wavy brown hair complete with hair net and bobby pins--wasn’t the hairstyle I would have preferred. And it took some dressing to keep it from looking like a fright. But, checking it in the rearview mirror to be sure it was in place, with my pony tail tucked neatly underneath, I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the man’s office.

When I was ushered into his presence what should I discover but a bald-headed man sitting behind the desk. I wondered, ‘I have trouble with my hair, does he have trouble without his?’

Shortly after sitting down, I began to have the distinct feeling that my wig was sliding up. The heat from my body had something to do with it. Controlling an incipient desire to rush out of the room and rip the wig off, even if it meant disclosing my shameless cover-up, I crossed my arms on top of my head--a gesture sufficiently common to look normal. But I couldn’t keep all the edges of that wig from their alarming creep. I did all I could to hurry the visit along.

I managed to get out of that office and the school building hoping I hadn’t been, you might say, uncovered. I imagined eyes peering out of every window. I checked in the mirror: Yes, there it was, a line of my dark brown hair showing under the wig of light brown hair! Had anyone noticed? I decided to leave it on until I was out of sight of the building.

And then I realized to my horror that I had left my briefcase in the man’s office. I would have to go back and retrieve it. I adjusted the wig once more, tugging it to get it fairly well down on my head, trying to hide what I was doing from those eyes I imagined peering out of those tall windows. I was perspiring now and that was oiling the upward creep.

Dashing inside I breathlessly asked about my briefcase, but no one had noticed I’d left it behind. When it was finally fetched I hastily thanked the secretary, grabbed it in one hand, the other atop my bewigged head, and dashed out the door.

Well, I thought, people wearing toupees also have trouble making their rugs look normal.

My program was approved despite my apprehensions, and another sin against education would be averted. But, alas, only for the 20 co-eds in the experimental program.