What in the world…? There is a saying that goes ‘the tail is wagging the dog’ and there is even ‘the lunatics are running the asylum’. You get the general meaning there. And the same could be said of a school in Kent. The matter before us is fake eyelashes. Fake eyelashes? Don’t you mean ‘fake news’? No. I mean fake eyelashes. But it could well be, couldn’t it, but it’s not. So, what’s fake eyelashes got to do with reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and learning, in school? I hear you ask. Bear with me. Bear with me.
The school in question, Knole Academy in Sevenoaks, Kent, describing itself as an ‘all ability co-educational school with grammar stream and International Baccalaureate candidate school’, has allowed their pupils, all 1,300 of them, to wear fake eyelashes as part of their school uniform. What! The headteacher of said secondary school, David Collins, recently told parents by letter that pupils were missing school to have their fake eyelashes removed or, much worse, refusing to attend school at all without them. So, his solution, due to ‘mental health’ considerations, is to make fake eyelashes part of the uniform. What the…!
He also makes the claim that when society changes, any previous standpoint becomes redundant or untenable. So, which educational guru suggested it would be good for school kids, good for their mental health, to wear fake eyelashes to school?
We can all tell when someone is wearing fake or false eyelashes. We can usually spot it from a mile off and that’s the point of it isn’t it? Get noticed? Be seen? So, it is peculiarly funny that headteacher David Collins goes on to say that fake eyelashes are allowed, as long as they are discreet. Discreet? How did he come up with that one? What’s the point of wearing false eyelashes and then keeping them discreet? You want them to pop, man!
Joking aside, are we now a society being run by children? And where will all this end? What else are school kids going to demand of authorities to get their bums on seats? And besides, can’t the fake eyelash wearers get them removed at the weekend? During the school holidays? (of which there are plenty). And not in school time? As the saying goes, looks like the lunatics are indeed running the asylum. And the tails are wagging the dogs.
