A teacher in Iran has made a heartwarming gesture of solidarity with an unwell student – by shaving his own head.
Ali Mohammadian took the drastic measure after noticing one of his students, who is believed to have lost his hair through cancer, was being bullied by his classmates at Sheikh Shaltoot elementary school in Marivan, a Kurdish city in west Iran.
He posted a picture of himself with his newly shaved head, alongside the little boy and his classmates, on Facebook on 22 December.
The image was shared hundreds of times and word of Mohammadian’s kind gesture spread.
According to a 12 January report on this Iranian Kurdistan online news site, the 45-year-old was named “hero of the week” by popular Iranian TV show Paysh.
PUK Media cites Mohammadian as telling the show: “My student was bullied by his colleagues at school due to his baldness that was caused by cancer; so to help him, I decided to cut my hair bald.”
And in a telephone interview with the Guardian, he said: “I’m so happy that this has touched many hearts and people reacted enormously positively.
“Everyone in the school now wants to shave their head.”
What’s more, within a matter of days, Mohammadian says his 23 other students were so inspired by their teacher’s action, they too decided to shave their heads.
Well done, Sir.