I am a high school principal, and for better or worse, that means signing a lot of documents. I mean A LOT. Report cards, IEPs (Individualized Education Programs), reports, requests, diplomas — the list is endless. Over the years, I have developed a signature that is easy to write, distinctive, and kind of hard to read. In other words, it’s a scrawl.

Recently, I sent home registration papers to a new parent whose teenager will be entering the school in September. They included a cover letter signed by me. The next day, there was a message on our school’s voicemail from the teenager’s mother.

Mother: “Hi. I just received the registration package from the school, and I had a question about the letter that came with it. It says it’s from the principal, but I can’t read his signature. Can someone get back to me about this?”

Note that under my signature is my name and title printed proudly in 12-pt Times New Roman.

My secretary called back, and [Mother] demanded to speak to me personally.

Me: “Hi there, [My Name] speaking. How can I help you?”

Mother: “I received your letter with the registration package. I was a little confused because I couldn’t read your signature.”

Me: “Confused… how? It was from me.”

Mother: “I know, but I couldn’t read your signature, so…”

I sat there, quietly reflecting.

Mother: “You know, I don’t want to make a big deal of it, but I don’t think it’s okay to have a signature people can’t read.”

Me: “I’m not sure I understand the concern. The letter is from me, on school letterhead, with my name and title clearly displayed—”

Mother: *Interrupting* “But I can’t read the signature. I think it needs to be clearer so that, you know, I— people can read it.”

I was thoughtfully silent again.

Mother: “I think you need to change it.”

Me: “Okay, well, thanks for calling. If you are having any difficulty with the registration papers themselves, you can talk to our Guidance secretary.”

Mother: “Are you going to fix it?”

Me: “Fix it? My signature?”

Mother: “I think you need to change it.”

Me: “Thanks. If you need assistance, I’ll pass your call to Guidance. Bye now.”

I hung up.

A little while later, I received an email from [Mother] with suggested examples of what she wanted my signature to be.

I thoughtfully deleted it.

This is a story that my father is always fond of repeating, describing events that happened when he was a teen.

Living in Norway, especially back in the day, the winters are long, cold, and of course, filled with snow. This means that most schools and other clubs, activities, etc., that deal with kids and teens have very strict rules about what one is allowed to do or not do when it comes to said snow. Especially when it comes to snowballs, those rules tend to be very strict. There’s always a lot of gravel and such used to fight the buildup of ice, which can potentially make the snowballs quite dangerous projectiles, so the rules make sense. To some extent, at least.

My dad had become intimately familiar with those rules, as he had been caught red-handed throwing snowballs on several occasions. This caused him to receive an ultimatum: “No more breaking the rules, or you will be suspended!” To make sure that he knew what the rules were, he was told to study them carefully.

One summer in mid-June, there was a MASSIVE hailstorm — so big, in fact, that by the time it was over, the landscape looked like it was winter with piles of sloppy, icy snow everywhere. Going outside, the adults made sure to remind the kids about the snow rules. They made a point to stop my father at the door.

Teachers: “You know the rules. We will keep an eye on you and expect you to follow them to the letter!“

Cue malicious compliance.

You see, the rules were VERY specific. They specifically stated what you were and weren’t allowed to do with snow. In the winter.

Every single rule started with, “In the winter, you are not allowed to…”

As my father had been forced to study the rules extensively, he knew perfectly well what the rules stated, and he went outside, gathered up a piece of snow, and hurled it at one of his friends. This, of course, sparked a massive snowball fight, after which he was led up to the principal’s office.

Principal: “I assume you know why you’re here?”

Father: “Not really, no. I don’t see how I did anything wrong.”

Principal: “I thought we made it very clear what would happen if you broke the rules one more time.”

The principal pulled out the book of rules and flipped to a page.

Principal: “Mind reading to me this rule?” *Pointing to the rule about snowballs*

Father: “‘During the winter, you are not allowed to throw snowballs… [a whole bunch of text specifying what you were not allowed to throw at, where you were not allowed to throw, etc.]'”

Principal: “So, now that you’ve had a refresher, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Father: “What time of year is it?”

Principal: “…”

My father got off without any further argument, even getting a commendation from his teacher for his “clever way to think outside of the box”. The rules were changed to be a lot less specific about the time of year a few weeks later, though it wasn’t very likely to ever happen again, as hailstorms during the summer are a very rare occurrence in this part of the country.

This happened a few years ago when I was applying and interviewing for teaching jobs. A common question in teaching job interviews — and in basically any job interview — is, “Where do you want to be in five years?”

My standard answer to that question is pretty generic: I want to be teaching at a school I enjoy being part of and to keep improving my teaching methods and strategies to help every student as much as possible.

This wasn’t enough for one school, who — very surprisingly — actually called on the phone to tell me that I didn’t get the job and to give me a chance to ask for feedback. By this point, the principal had given me some basic pointers to improve my interview, and then we got to the above question.

Principal: “I also want to address your answer about where you want to be in five years. Your answer just didn’t make you seem like a very motivated or ambitious person.”

Me: “Can I ask what you mean by that?”

Principal: “Well, at [School], we expect our teachers to always be trying to improve.”

Me: “I understand, but I feel I addressed that with my answer already.”

Principal: “Well, being ‘the best teacher you can be’ is a good start, but we expect more than that. We want our teachers to do things like getting an Administrator license, getting a Master’s degree or two, taking as many of the offered training seminars as you can — that kind of stuff.”

Me: “Okay, but… I don’t want to be an administrator. I want to be a teacher, so having my administrator license wouldn’t do me any good. I also don’t feel like I need a Master’s degree to be a good teacher, so if it’s not required by [State] education laws, I just see it as a waste of money and energy. And all of the training seminars would take time away from my lesson planning, if not taking me out of class entirely, because most of them take place during school. Really, all of these things sound like they would actually make me a worse teacher because I would be focusing on checking them off the list instead of focusing on my actual teaching.”

Principal: “You just have to be motivated about it.”

Me: “So, you’re saying that having meaningless paper accomplishments is more important than actually helping students learn and achieve goals like graduating and getting into college?”

Principal: “These are the things we expect from our teachers at [School]. I apologize again, but we’ve made our decision to hire another candidate, so good luck with your job search.”

At that point, the principal abruptly hung up.

In hindsight, I’m pretty glad I didn’t get that particular job.

This story reminded me of a hair-dying incident that happened at the school where I work.

A girl in seventh grade sat down to eat lunch as I was overlooking the food hall. She was wearing a hat, which was against the rules.

Me: “[Student], please take off your hat.”

She refused, which was really, really odd as this girl normally was very well-behaved. I went over to her, and she shrank in the chair.

Student: “I dyed my hair last night, and it didn’t go well.”

She ripped her hat off, and what was on top of her head might be the most repulsive “hair colour” I have ever seen. I felt queasy just looking at it; mostly, it just looked like someone had been sick from both ends and scrubbed her hair with said bodily fluids.

Me: “Please put the hat back on.”

Student: “I’m going to dye it again tonight to correct this abomination that I’m stuck with.”

A few minutes later, I was standing at my normal guarding position when our principal did a walk-through. He immediately zoomed in on the girl with the hat but stopped when he saw me. I was known for running a tight ship in the food hall, so a student wearing a hat in “my” room (we had three different lunch rooms) meant that something was going on.

I quickly informed him of the hair disaster, and the student, who was sitting a meter or so away, offered to take her hat off again and show him. He patted her on the shoulder.

Principal: “Good luck fixing the hair. I’ll speak to your teachers so that you can keep the hat on in class.”

As he had a dozen grandkids who were teenagers or young adults, he had experienced failed dye jobs many times and went into grandpa mode to make sure she wouldn’t be too traumatized.

The next day, I was once again on guard when [Student] entered. She dropped her food at the nearest table, swung around to show me her newly-dyed hair, and then gave me a quick hug to thank me for being so understanding the previous day. The principal also came by and gushed over her fancy new hair colour like a proud grandpa.

Related:
Rest In Purple

I went to a public high school in an affluent neighborhood that was around thirty minutes from Detroit. To be honest, it was a great place. The teachers were nice, and I learned a lot, but there are just some things that make me look back at those years with awkwardness.

A few years ago, I was eating lunch in one of the wide open areas near the lunch room. I was never a fan of the crowded lunch room, but the surrounding areas were more open and let’s just say less claustrophobic.

I was eating my lunch, like normal, when I noticed a group of kids near the corner. Normally, I wouldn’t pay them any mind, but then I noticed one of them was wearing one of those “Ahegao” hoodies. For those not aware, “Ahegao” clothing refers to clothing printed with designs that consist of panels and screenshots from erotic anime and manga, or as it’s more commonly known, “hentai”.

Our school had a dress code that prevented the wearing of clothing with sexual designs or innuendos, and I couldn’t believe that nobody had pulled him aside for this blatant dress code violation, so I went up to the nearest staff member and pointed this out to them.

I headed back to my seat, and then I could overhear the staff member and the kid talking.

Staff: “Sir, you know very well that clothing containing references to sexual activity is not allowed in this school. Would you like me to call your parents so you can get a change of clothes?”

Kid: “What? They’re just sneezing, ma’am!”

After telling the dumbest lie I ever heard, the kid walked away from the staff member and went back to where his friends were.

I tried explaining to the staff member again, but she told me there was nothing she could do, so I decided to tell someone who could do something.

After lunch, I immediately walked into the principal’s office and made it clear to the secretaries there that I wanted to report a dress code violation.

I was then referred to the vice principal, who was quite skeptical of my claims. After all, there were a lot of weebs (anime fans) at my school, and not all anime was sexual.

Luckily, I was prepared for this reaction. But I wasn’t prepared for how awkward the next couple of minutes of my life would be.

I now had to explain to the principal, vice principal, and their secretaries what the difference between normal, non-sexual anime and hentai was.

A few minutes later, I walked out of the office, feeling the most embarrassment I’d ever felt in my life.

I’m in college now. I still don’t know what happened to the Ahegao-hoodie-wearing kid, but I’m willing to assume he got a stern talking-to about the dress code. I wonder what his parents said to him once they found out…