Students read 19,000 minutes = hair cuts
LOVELAND, OHIO - This year for Right to Read Week, Becky Steele, a third-grade Loveland Elementary teacher, decided to challenge her students to read at home. They were to keep track of how many minutes they read. She dared, the four classes in Team Discovery, “That if they totaled over 19,000 minutes of reading from Feb. 28 to March 13, she would donate her hair to Locks of Love.”
Last Wednesday at noon, Greg Stevens from Loveland's Salon 426 came to the school gym and cut Steele's hair in front of the students. The top four student readers took turns helping with the stylist's scissors.
Locks of Love provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure.
Steel said that as she was walking in the hall that morning she asked a student, "What do you think my hair will look like, good or bad?"
The student just looked at her and said, "Well that depends on your hairstylist." Steel said that the boy was absolutely correct. She said she wasn't nervous, because Stevens had done such a great job the first time she donated her long hair in 2005.
In a note to parents Steel said, “What an incredible two weeks! Your children read for 28,765 minutes. And the best part, the highest reader from each homeroom got to help cut her hair.” Steel said, “Congratulations to Kate Steensma, John Ernst, Jerry Jiang, and Sam Sauer.”
As the top reader, Jerry Jiang got to make the final cut. Steel said, “Hearing Jerry cut the final pieces of my hair was like nails on a chalkboard” She said she could hear every strand being cut away from the other. “Ugh - what had I gotten myself into.”
Asked whether she was missing her hair now, Steel said, “Yes. I could drive home that day with the top down, and I couldn't use my ponytail to keep my hair out of my eyes.” She said that even five days later, when she sees herself in the mirror, she cannot get over the image she sees. “I still expected to see my hair back in my ponytail.”
Steel says that she was thrilled with the entire experience, “Getting Greg Stevens to come back, and the students reading over 28,000 minutes.” She said the classes were able to use addition and pict-o-graphs for math. She also praises the teamwork of her teaching colleagues. She is proud that they all got to help someone in need through Locks of Love. “It was all fantastic. I look forward to doing it again in a couple of years.”
Steel said that this time especially, she will remember that her daughters wanted to do the same thing. So last Wednesday night her daughters also got their hair cut short. “So I will be sending three ponytails to Locks of Love which is amazing. All because the students cared and read.”
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