Professional Learning for Busy Educators

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Deputy Headmaster Rohan Brown abruptly cutting a student’s hair that was front page news, but rather what came next.

It was a day in early March when school photos were being taken, and as the young lad walked through the front gate of Trinity Grammar, a prominent boy’s school in Melbourne, Brown noticed the length of his hair. As he had done on other occasions, he pulled a pair of scissors out of his pocket and snipped a lock of hair. Only this time, it was captured on a fellow student’s iPhone, posted on social media, and within days Brown was dismissed, after more than thirty years teaching at the school.

However, that was not the end of the story but rather the start, with several weeks of student-led protests, meetings, and online petitions to “Bring Brownie Back” which reached out to drive strong parent support. Within weeks Brown was reinstated, the Headmaster resigned together with several School Board members.

Now in light of the massive student-led protests calling for action against gun violence across America in the same month, the Brown story pales in significance. Or does it? They are just two very public examples of the influence of agency, and its impact on power and authority.