Cultural Sensitivity: Where do you draw the line?

So, I got off the plane on Sunday evening, and after dealing with a baggage fiasco all of Sunday night and Monday morning, I started up teaching again on Tuesday at 7:30 sharp.

Its both good and bad to be back in the classroom. What I like about teaching is that its social. I get to interact with the youth in the community. I also like the fact that its structured. Theres a set time that people actually abide by (im talking about class time, meetings are another story), so it makes life a lot easier. Now that its been 4 months, i feel like Im getting to know my students as people.

Since I focused on grammar for the first quarter I taught, I planned this quarter around literature. I assigned E.B. White's Charlottes Web and John Steinbeck's The Pearl . I feel that reading a language is a fun and useful way to learn it, but Im dissapointed to see that most of the students dont seem very interested in literature. (I also think I may have made a mistake with Charlotte's Web, there are a lot of expressions in it, and the vocab is above the students level, even though there are pictures included). The students in one of my classes asked me if I was going to teach them "business English". I told them I hadnt planned on it, but if it was very important to them, I would consider it. I'm sencing this echoed sentiment that business and making money are all thats important, and everything else in life, especially the arts and social sciences, are a waste of time. Its such a fallacy and it drives me nuts how many people buy into that crap. I dont know how to open peoples minds to other possibilities, other professions besides banking and administration. Ok, Im done with that rant.

So, the reason for my title. On Friday, while I was teaching a lesson to Senior 4, the principal walked into the classroom with a pair of scissors. He didnt say a word to me as he walked in, just out of nowhere started walking around the room and cutting the students's hair. I was horrified. For one thing, he wasnt sitting down and giving them "haircuts". He was nipping little bald spots into the students hair, both male and female, who were struggling to get away from him. He was most agressive with the students who resisted the most. When they leaned away from him he made it a point to cut bigger bald spots in their hair. I was honestly a little shocked and didnt know what to do; I mean, Im a white female foreigner who is younger and obviously of lower status to a school principal. I finally got up the nerve to approach him and asked him if it was really necessary to waste class time with this, and he told me yes. He continued throughout the classroom, and ushered half of the students out so that they could be given full haircuts. It was very difficult to get back to the lesson after all that drama. Neither I nor the students were really up for it, but I did my best. The students who were taken out did come back in, with their hair shorter but also uneven, i mean, paper scissors arent really made to cut hair. It was also a huge distraction when the students came back in, trying to cover their heads while the other students examined them.

I know I am supposed to be culturally sensitive. I know that there is a rule about hair length in schools in Rwanda (and Kenya, Uganda...) and I had even heard about teachers at other schools cutting students hair. My principal is not a bad person. He works hard and I know he cares. But where do you draw the line? Maybe Im being dramatic, but I really am disgusted with how this went down. Especially due to the fact that these students arent really kids. Some of them are in their early twenties, some are even older than me. What right does one adult have over another adult to do something like this? I also feel a little guilty because I have long hair, and although I tie it back, theres no way im cutting it short like the students and as a teacher, I know I dont have to. I didnt approach the principal to discuss how I felt, because if my previous experience with students cutting grass has taught me anything, its that there is already a system in place, and my Western thoughts or feelings about it conflict with that system. Expressing my thoughts doesnt do much to change a longstanding tradition. I still feel like there could be some middle ground, like giving the students a strict warning that they cannot go to class with their hair long, or have a rule that they must tie it up/ have it covered. I just dont know. Im open to any thoughts, advice, or suggestions my readers have on this. Amahoro (peace)