This North Carolina Student Was Punished for Being Respectful to His Teacher

10-year-old Tamarion Wilson came home to his parents with a double-sided sheet on which he had written the word “ma’am’ on repeatedly. He said his teacher had made him do it as discipline for responding to her with “yes ma’am”.

Coming up at 4:30 and 6 on @ABC11_WTVD: Parents of a Tarboro 5th grader are upset after their son got in trouble for calling a teacher "ma'am" against her wishes. In response, they say the teacher made him write the word repeatedly on a sheet of paper pic.twitter.com/KJghF8rPQb

— Michael Perchick (@MichaelPerchick) August 23, 2018

Tamarion had been instructed to take the paper home so his parents could sign it.

ABC15 News elaborates:

Apparently the teacher asked the student not to call her “ma’am,” and when he did so, she had him write the word repeatedly as punishment. He was instructed to take it home and have it signed by his parents. The teacher also said “if she had something, she would have thrown it at him,” according to Wilson. The teacher later said she wasn’t being serious.

Teretha Wilson and McArthur Bryant, Tamarion’s parents, called the teacher’s actions inappropriate. They explained their son was raised to refer to elders as “sir” and “ma’am,” and he was not being disrespectful.

Tamarion’s parents requested that he be assigned to another classroom, but they were also concerned about such an incident happening again to another child just trying to be respectful to an elder.

“If it happened to my son,” said Bryant, “I’m pretty sure if not a week, a day, a month, a year, it will occur to somebody else’s child.”

According to the school, the teacher in question has several years of experience. A school official released the following statement: “This is a personnel matter which has been handled appropriately by the K-7 principal.”

Thankfully Tamarion won’t have to deal with that teacher again, and on the bright side – he’ll never struggle with how to spell “ma’am”.