Teacher who let bullied student shave her head = total hero

Kids can be just plain mean sometimes. That’s what fourth-grader Matthew learned the hard way last week when he was made fun of for his buzzcut—specifically, for the scar on the back of his head that created a bald spot there.

But his teacher, Tori Nelson, had his back. She spotted him crying outside, wearing his hat and coat so that they totally covered his head. She coaxed him into telling her why he was crying, but she couldn’t get him to come inside.

“The comment crushed him,” Nelson told FOX Q13. “He refused to come into our classroom and would not remove his hat.”

“I was kind of running out of options,”she explained to BuzzFeed.

So she brilliantly told him that if he comes inside, she’ll let him give HER a buzzcut after lunch. Why? Because that way, ” if anyone makes fun of you, they’re also making fun of me,” she told Matthew, according to FOXQ13. ALL OF THE YES. So, of course, Matthew agreed, and Tori kept her word—she let him buzz off all of her hair after lunch.

Tori said that the idea just sort of popped in her head, and she ran with it. For a lot of people, this would be a BIG deal—after all, hair can seem like a huge part of your identity. But for Tori, it was small potatoes compared to helping out a bullied student. “Hair means nothing to me,” she told BuzzFeed. “It grows back.”

As for Matthew’s parents, they were “pretty thankful that someone would do something that drastic to make him feel better,” according to Tori. Um, yeah, of course they were! It’s pretty clear that their son is in great hands.

Since the Great Shaving, the story has pretty much gone viral. It’s been “overwhelming,” according to Tori, and she’s been receiving e-mails from all over the country. “It’s just been insane,” she told BuzzFeed. “It’s pretty rewarding to be part of such a positive story.”

A positive story that YOU created, Tori! Thanks for being such an amazing educator and making little lives better one by one. You are a queen, and our teacher hero!

[Images via Tori Nelson]