One Italian Teacher Helped Her Student Feel Better About Her Natural Hair After Being Teased

After a healthy dose of negative stories about natural hair in the news lately it feels great to report a positive story about a little girl whose hair was celebrated rather than chastised.

Alexondra Purnomo a first-grade teacher in Rome, Italy noticed that one of the little girls in her class was getting teased because of her hair.

The child, Sasha, is the only Black child in a mostly Italian white class and when she did not have her usual braids, the kids really started to make fun of her. Little Sasha then decided she would wear a hat to school to cover her hair to avoid chastisement from other children.

“Some of the kids made fun of her for her short hair, so she started wearing a hat to school and refused to take it off,” Purnomo wrote on Facebook. Sasha then began to wear a winter hat and refused to take it off. Purnomo and another teacher decided to use this situation as a lesson about racial differences, and show that no matter if you’re “short, tall, light skinned, dark skinned, blond, brunette, with or without glasses, boy, girl, braid, bun, sneakers, shoes… ” you are uniquely special.

After having a talk with Sasha about her hat the teacher was able to get her to remove the hat and to help make things easier for her she changed her own hairstyle to a top knot bun and called it the “Sasha bun”.

“Then one by one, all of the girls (and boys! ?) wanted their hair in a “Sasha bun.” We were able to come together as a class and bring a smile to Sasha’s face after a long, tough week. It gave me chills to see 19 kids come together to help one fellow student.”

In an update shared by Popsugar, Sasha did go to school the following week with a hat on but the other children “cheered her on saying, “Ma Sasha, sei bella,” (“But Sasha, you’re beautiful!”), she removed it and showed off her hair the rest of the day.”

Plus all of the other little girls were sporting ‘Sasha buns’ as well, so why not!