A timid fourth-grader was feeling low last week when he was teased by an older kid for his new haircut.
According to KCPQ, nine-year-old Matthew Finney shaved his head over the weekend, and one of his peers couldn't resist giving the boy a hard time about an apparent new bald spot.
Finney's Winlock Miller Elementary School teacher, Tori Nelson told KCPQ her student was really upset.
“The comment crushed him,” Nelson told the Washington State station. “He refused to come into our classroom and would not remove his hat.”
So, she made a deal with him. If he came to her class, she would shave her head too.
“After talking to him for a while, I finally said, ‘If I let you cut my hair so it’s just like yours, will you come learn with us and take your hat off?'” Nelson told KCPQ.
He said yes and was coaxed into coming to class.
After lunch, all of Nelson's fourth-graders gathered in her classroom to witness the dramatic haircut -- at the hands of Finney himself.
Once she and Finney shared the same haircut, she told the boy, “Now if anyone makes fun of you, they’re also making fun of me.”
Nelson wrote on her Facebook page: "Now no one is ashamed or embarrassed…except maybe my mom. I’m sorry mom!!”
"I wasn't thinking, 'Man, I'm going to change this kid's life today by getting a hair cut.' I was just thinking, 'I need to get him in the classroom to learn!" she told Today. "To me, it's just hair. I'm okay with not having it. I didn't even have to think twice about it."
And what was Finney's reaction to the whole thing?
"It doesn't really surprise me too much that she did it," he told Today of his teacher. "Sometimes she's crazy and funny."
