A 10-year-old boy in North Carolina was punished by his teacher for calling her “ma’am” according to a report from the Daily Mail.
A fifth-grader in North Carolina was punished over his decision to call his teacher by the term of respect “ma’am” after she asked him not to.
Student Tamarion Wilson was made to write out the word ‘ma’am’ repeatedly as a punishment during class on Tuesday at North East Carolina Preparatory School in Tarboro, North Carolina.
When the boy called the teacher ‘ma’am’ after she had prohibited it, the teacher said that if she had something to throw, she would have thrown it at the boy, according to Wilson.
According to the Daily Mail, Tamarion’s mother Teretha Wilson was shocked when he returned home from the public charter school with the sheet of paper, for her to sign in order to complete the punishment.
‘I asked him what happened. He said he got in trouble for saying “yes ma’am”,’ the mother told ABC 11.
“Tamarion was hospitalized last month for a seizure illness that included hallucinations and memory loss, although the teacher was not aware of his condition,” Wilson said.
Tamarion’s father McArthur Bryant, said that they had raised their children to address their elders as ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’.
“As a father, to feel kind of responsible for that…knowing that I have been raising him and doing the best that I can, it’s not acceptable,” Bryant told ABC.
According to the report, Wilson met with the teacher and the principal on Wednesday, and requested that Tamarion be placed in a different classroom. The principal granted the request, Wilson said.
‘This is a personnel matter which has been handled appropriately by the K-7 principal” said the school in a statement.
