What does it mean for a Black woman to show up as her whole self in an educational system designed to keep her small? For me, the answer is tied up in my 4C hair. Hair is critical to understand as I introduce the 4C methodology—an embodied methodology that seeks to honor those of us with coarse hair. I specifically name coarse hair not to exclude the many Black women with looser hair types but to highlight and uplift the most discriminated against texture, knowing that by doing so I am also bringing Black women across all hair types with me. Most Black women go through a processed process with our hair. We negotiate between learnings from our family, media, school, peers, and beyond, all of which teach us to believe one thing or another about our hair. The identity formation rooted in how we learn about our hair—how to do it, how it is perceived, and styles that are safe begs the question: What does it mean to process our hair? Our minds? Ourselves? --- I have a distinct memory from primary school of being called Medusa by another student. It was due to the long box braid hairstyle my mother fashioned me with, each strand resembling a rope-like braided figure from my scalp to my back. They framed my face and I loved the way I looked in them, but it was clear to me that others perceived them as dubious. Medusa is essentially a monster whose hair strands are actual snakes. Medusa was cursed by a jealous god and all of her assets, including her beauty, were weaponized against her as the men who looked upon her were turned into stone (Bowers, 1990), essentially marking her as one-dimensional while minimizing everything about her to this curse and its impact on those around her. As a child, I didn’t fully understand the connotation of Medusa and its connection to my hair but I knew it was bad.