As someone with very thick curly/wavy hair that wouldn’t be contained by most kids’ hair accessories, I really felt this story.

All this girl wanted as a 7th grader was to participate in the swimming class, but even an adult cap wasn’t enough for her curly hair, and her new teacher kept reprimanding her for it.

So she did something extreme to show who’s boss.

Let’s read the whole story and see what happened.

I just wanted to swim

My middle school used to be part of Teaching College, so we have remnants like a swimming pool, and as such, everyone from 1st to 8th grade had to learn how to swim.

This story takes place when I was in 7th grade, around 2017.

At that time, the middle school gym teacher, Mr. B (who had been there for decades), finally retired.

This sucked because 1) he was a great teacher, and 2) he would make an effort to meet students where they were at.

But now things were about to change and it wouldn’t be for the better.

I’m black, and have very thick, curly hair.

At my school, the rules for the pool stated that if your hair reached your shoulders, you had to wear a swim cap.

I always tried to follow said rule, but my (plastic) swim caps kept breaking, and cloth swim caps could not hold back my hair.

Eventually, I went to Mr. B and asked if I could be exempt, as my hair didn’t reach my shoulders, and he agreed to it.

She thought the new teacher would understand.

So, when Mr. B retired, I figured I could have a similar discussion with the new teacher, Ms. W.

Ms. W was much younger (I wonder if we were her first class), and was a stickler for the rules.

I was raised to respect my teachers so I bought myself a cloth, adult swim cap, figuring that it at least wouldn’t tear.

However, it became very clear very quickly that the drag of the water would literally pull the cap off my head.

Several times I had my classmates stop me in the middle of a workout to let me know.

That was getting in the way of the actual swimming.

Eventually I said “screw it,” and took my cap off.

My reasoning was that all the stopping and readjusting I had to do was preventing me from completing the workout (the whole point).

But when Ms. W saw, she immediately started reprimanding me.

It wasn’t fair.

I tried explaining my situation, that it was just until class ended and I could find a better one, and that I wasn’t trying to cause trouble/be disrespectful.

(Some of my classmates even came to my defense too) but she kept saying if I didn’t put it back on she would kick me out of class.

The new teacher was unreasonable, and it made it impossible for her to participate.

I don’t remember what I did after that, but what I do know is that for the next week, I refused to swim.

There were exercise bikes stationed outside of windows looking into the pool, and that’s where I went every class.

Ms. W would try to get me in trouble, but I would just point out that I had no alternative swim cap and that I still wanted to exercise.

Nothing really solved the situation. Until…

Eventually, the school and my mother got involved.

The school eventually took Ms. W’s side and my family had to order an extra large cap (which took 3 weeks to ship from Australia).

After being laughed at (and realizing that my hair wasn’t enough to fill the cap, leaving a sizable buoy on my head), I cut my hair short.

That solved it.

After that, I went capless for the rest of my time there. And Ms. W couldn’t stop me.

When I graduated middle school and went to my public high school (almost 1,000 in my high school class vs 32 in middle school) I was afraid there would be a repeat, especially since more students use the pool.

However, I didn’t even have to make my case, the coach simply said “yeah, that’s fine.”

Needless to say I felt much more welcomed in high school.

That school was as prepared to accommodate her as the regular swimming caps were to accommodate her hair.

Let’s see what Reddit had to say.

A reader shares her sentiment.

This commenter shares their thoughts.

Exactly.

They claim it’s to prevent hair from clogging the drains.

This reader is confused.

She got to snub her teacher and swim without a cap.

She owned her teacher, no cap.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.