eretha Wilson and McArthur Bryant raise their 10-year-old son Tamarion to call their elders maam and sir, but that politeness got the fifth grader in trouble from a teacher at his preparatory school. The North Carolina parents told ABC-13 that they had Tamarion moved to a different classroom at North East Carolina Preparatory School in Tarboro after his teacher punished him for calling her maam.
Tamarion had returned from school on Tuesday with a punishment he had to have signed by his parents. He went on to explain that he had continued to repeatedly call his teacher maam despite her requests not to, and was told to write the word maam written on a piece of paper four times per line on both sides as a penalty.
He had a look on his face of disappointment, shame, Bryant told ABC-13. At the end of the day as a father, to feel kind of responsible for that
knowing that I have been raising him and doing the best that I can, its not acceptable.
Wilson went on to explain that Tamarion had recently been in the hospital for seizure-related activity, and had been suffering from memory loss and hallucinations.
Adding to their anger was how the teacher allegedly told Tamarion during the encounter that if she had something, she would have thrown it at him which the parents said the teacher admitted when they met with her and the principal the next day.
It wasnt right, Wilson told to ABC-13. It wasnt professional. As a teacher, it wasnt appropriate.
Reps for North East Carolina Preparatory School did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment, but told ABC-13 in a statement, This is a personnel matter which has been handled appropriately by the K-7 principal.
Though Tamarion will moving to a different classroom, Bryant is warning other parents of this sort of behavior. If it happened to my son, Im pretty sure if not a week, a day, a month, a year, it will occur to somebody elses child, he said.
And as for Tamarions punishment, it was returned to the teacher, signed as promised but with a second sheet of paper attached, the family said: Tamarion, writing the definition of the word maam.
There must be more to the story. If not this teacher needs to go!