Out-of-Control Teacher Threatens Violence Against a Student for Calling Her ‘Ma’am’

Take a walk through American schools these days, and one thing becomes dramatically clear: There’s a lack of respect coming from young people.

Whether it’s frequent fights between unruly students or classrooms so chaotic that dozens of teachers quit at once, many school districts are struggling with disrespectful and uninterested pupils.

You’d think that a boy actually trying to show courtesy to educators would be welcomed. Apparently not, at least if a disturbing incident in North Carolina is any sign.

According to WSFA News, a 10-year-old boy was recently punished by a teacher and verbally threatened with violence. His offense? He said “yes, ma’am” to a female teacher.

Tamarion Wilson attends North East Carolina Preparatory School in Tarboro, North Carolina. When he came home from school this past Tuesday, his mother knew something was wrong and started asking questions.

“I asked him what happened,” explained Teretha Wilson. “He said he got in trouble for saying ‘yes, ma’am.'”

Then the 10-year-old showed his mother a sheet of paper he was forced to write as punishment. “(H)e’d been made to write the word “ma’am,” four times per line on both sides – all because he’d referred to his teacher as such after she’d instructed him not to,” reported WSFA.

More alarmingly, the teacher also told the boy that she would have thrown something at him if her hands were full after he used “ma’am” to address her.

The teacher sent the boy home with a paper to be signed by a parent and returned. His mother did — but also included a second paper on which the young student wrote out the definition for the term “ma’am.” According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “ma’am” is short for madam, “used without a name as a form of respectful or polite address to a woman.”

As anybody who has spent time in the south knows, saying “sir” and “ma’am” is quite common as a sign of respect and many parents instill this in their children. The young boy’s parents said that’s exactly what they taught their son.

“He had a look on his face of disappointment, shame,” said McArthur Bryant, who is Tamarion’s father.

“At the end of the day, as a father, you 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 said.

Incredibly, school officials acknowledged during a meeting with the parents that the teacher did threaten to throw something at the boy, but claimed she wasn’t serious.

“Following the meeting, Wilson requested her son be moved to a different classroom, which the principal agreed to do,” WSFA News reported.

“In a statement about the handling of the situation, a school official said: ‘This is a personnel matter which has been handled appropriately by the K-7 principal,'” the news outlet continued.

Now, it is possible that there is more to the story. Perhaps the teacher genuinely believed that the student was using the term in a mocking or condescending way, instead of being polite.

In light of other stories, like the case last year where a teacher sued her school because co-workers used the “wrong” gender pronoun, there’s a very good chance this played out exactly as WSFA reported it.

America’s youth could use more respect for adults, not less. There’s no way around it: Punishing a boy for using a common term of courtesy — especially in the south — is simply ridiculous.

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What Five American Teachers Learned From Germany's Education System

Less emphasis on university entrance.  More on trades

These state teachers of the year, from Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., met German public school teachers, visited a private school in Berlin, and toured a vocational training program at a Siemens plant in Berlin. The teachers also visited historical and cultural sites in the city and participated in a discussion with two women who grew up on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall.

The teachers' trips were funded through EF Educational Tours, an educational travel agency for students and teachers, and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Education Week spoke with three of the teachers about their trip. (To read about teachers' trips in past years, see Madeline Will's coverage of prior state teachers' visits to Finland.)

Vocational Training and Career Preparation

All three of the teachers remarked on the strength and breadth of Germany's vocational training program.

In Germany, many students end secondary school after 10th grade and start on-the-job training or enroll in a vocational school. Most German students are tracked around the age of 12, either enrolled in a college-preparatory program, a school that prepares them for an apprenticeship supplemented with higher education coursework, or a vocational track.

This rigid structure has loosened somewhat in the past two decades as Germany sought to close the achievement gap between its highest and lowest performing students, but critics of the system still say it perpetuates inequalities: Children of native-born parents are overrepresented in the college-bound track, while children of immigrants are more likely to be in vocational schools.

In the U.S., "there is still sort of this notion that every kid who graduates from high school needs to [go to] college in order to be successful—and that is not the case in Germany," said Heidi Crumrine, an English teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire.

The teachers saw an example of this vocational education in a visit to Siemens, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe. The company participates in Germany's dual-training program, an option through the public school system in which students spend part of the week at a vocational school and part of the week working in industry.

Training, testing, and certification requirements are nationally standardized, so students aren't just preparing for a job with the company where they're apprenticing—they could earn certification in a certain trade at Siemens, and then use the credentials to apply for another job elsewhere.

Some U.S. schools offer similar certification tracks: Crumrine's school, for example, offers training in cosmetology, automotive technology, and health sciences. Students who complete a program can graduate with an endorsement for the trade. But vocational programs in the United States are more localized, operating at the state level or even in individual districts.

This large-scale, public program is more comprehensive than any career and technical education options in the U.S., said Paul Howard, a social studies teacher at LaSalle-Backus Education Campus in Washington, D.C. "Even at the college level in the U.S., we haven't figured out how to give people applicable knowledge," he said.

High schools in this country could do a better job of "helping students make that transition from school to work," said Becky Mitchell, an English and science teacher at Vision Charter School in Caldwell, Ind. The trip to Siemens gave her ideas about forming workforce partnerships at her own school in Idaho that could prepare her students for IT jobs in Boise, the state's capital, she said.

But Howard was skeptical that the U.S. as a whole—a much larger, more decentralized education system than in Germany, with a more diverse student population—could effectively replicate the national vocational training model.

"To say that we can just take what we're doing and drop it into the United States, which has a completely different historical context and cultural context—it's not going to happen," he said.

Teacher Challenges

But the German public school teachers that the state teachers of the year met with also discussed difficulties they experienced in the classroom.

"In the states, we kind of have this mythos that we've built around European schools," said Howard, when in reality, the teachers there face challenges as well.

Some of the issues were similar to those faced by U.S. teachers: Public school teachers told Howard that students from poor families in Germany don't get access to the same opportunities that the children of wealthier parents do.

Teacher pay is also low compared to other professions, they said, and teacher retention is a problem in German schools. (Teacher pay in Germany is actually higher than in the United States—2016 research from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that a veteran high school teacher there makes about $89,000 annually, while the same analysis put the average salary for a seasoned U.S. teacher at $69,000.)

"We're subject to the same bureaucracy, the same red tape," said Mitchell. "And we all want what's best for our students."

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Vocational schools must select to lift Britain’s technical merit

Toby Young

FOR more than a century, education experts have been warning that Britain places too much emphasis on academic education and not enough on technical or vocational.

Today, there is not just a growing consensus that we need to redress the balance, but an increasing demand for high-quality technical/vocational schools.

The growing skills gap in the UK means that by 2022 there are expected to be an additional 3.6 million vacancies in skilled occupations, such as advanced manufacturing.

Since 2010, 118 technical/vocational schools have been set up, aimed at 14 to 19-year-olds with a particular aptitude for a range of skilled occupations – 57 University Technical Colleges (UTCs), 55 studio schools and six free schools. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, they have not been successful.

To date, 36 of these schools have either been shut down, converted to other types of school or are earmarked for closure or conversion.

This has caused embarrassment to successive governments, undermined the credibility of the education reform programme that these schools are linked with, and harmed the life chances of the students consigned to them.

Those technical schools that are still open are also facing significant obstacles. For example, pupils at UTCs have lower GCSE scores, make less progress and acquire fewer qualifications than their contemporaries at comprehensives.

There are many difficulties facing technical and vocational schools, but my report, Technically Gifted, argues that their poor performance is largely due to the fact that they cannot select pupils, but must take all-comers – which in practice means that the headteachers of neighbouring comprehensives are using them as ‘‘dumping grounds’’ for their most poorly behaved, low-attaining students.

This puts off pupils who might actually benefit from the specialised education on offer and leaves the schools with many unfilled places.

It also blights the life chances of the hard-to-teach children who end up in them, and those who share their classrooms.

England’s two most successful technical/vocational schools – the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in London and Birmingham Ormiston Academy – are both selective and cater for those aged 14-19.

Historically, some of the most successful technical/vocational schools in Britain in the last 100 years – such as the 15 City Technology Colleges set up in the early 1980s, of which the BRIT School is one – have been selective.

Technical and vocational education in Britain has a long history of failure. Secondary moderns, where councils steered children who failed the 11-plus and where pupils had an opportunity to take qualifications in non-academic subjects, were, with a few exceptions, not particularly successful or popular.

Under the current system, technical/vocational education is still seen as an ‘‘alternative’’ for those who cannot cope with academic subjects or who have a range of difficulties.

This means fewer pupils are willing to move aged 14 – and most of those who do end up in these schools make below average progress.

In the 1990s, reforms to the qualification system to promote technical and vocational education largely failed, and so now the Government is creating T-Levels.

My report argues that, if the Government wants England’s technical/vocational schools to survive and thrive, it must cut the Gordian Knot linking technical and vocational education to a lack of aptitude for academic subjects and allow these schools to select pupils according to aptitude for their particular specialisms at the age of 14.

Not only would this transform the fortunes of these schools, it would also enable the Department for Education (DfE) to set up new 14-19 technical/vocational schools that would be likely to succeed, including replicas of the BRIT School and BOA in other English cities like Manchester and Liverpool.

This would not require any amendment to primary or secondary legislation. A policy change by the Secretary of State for Education would suffice.

This reform would help with Ministers’ stated aim of boosting the status of technical and vocational education by making sure specialist 14-19 schools are not seen as a second-best option.

It would also enhance the Government’s efforts to improve the calibre of technical/vocational qualifications via the introduction of T-levels, ensuring that those who take them (including a 45-day work placement at the end of each course)
are not just employment-ready but motivated to seek a career in the relevant industry.

Above all, it would fundamentally improve the life chances, income and well-being of those who have an aptitude for this type of education and would like the opportunity to pursue it, rather than treating them – as we have done for so long – like second-class citizens.

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