Teacher Writes ‘Loser’ on Student’s Assignments

AOL News (March 14) — The mother of a sixth-grader in Buncombe County, N.C., is upset about name-calling in her daughter’s classroom — but the students aren’t the ones slinging the mud.

Patty Clement is debating other parents in Candler, N.C., over Rex Roland, a teacher who sometimes writes the word “loser” on the assignments of his 11- and 12-year-old students.

Clement first noticed Roland’s notes in November, when he wrote “loser” in the margin of her daughter’s paper. The principal at Enka Middle School assured Clement it would not happen again, but it did, recently, when Roland wrote, “minus 20% for being a loser” on her daughter’s assignment.

“This is wrong,” Clement told Asheville’s WLOS-TV. “The techniques need to change.”

Other parents defend Roland’s progressive teaching methods, saying he is fond of giving nicknames to students and using the word “loser” in jest, as a way of relating to students.

“A lot of the students he has are academically gifted students, and so one of the ways that he would joke with them would be if they scored a 110, he always gave extra credit, so if they scored a 110, 120 on a paper, he would have a joke on it — ‘loser’,” one parent, Kathy Andrews, told WLOS. “That’s what he engages in … he gets on their level and their words and tries to relate to them.”

Her son, Ian Andrews, a former student of Roland, described him as “the cool teacher that people wanted to be in class with.”

Clement said the difference in opinion over Roland, a 12-year veteran at Enka Middle School, has made her daughter a target of bullying and harassment. She told The Associated Press her daughter received almost 100 threatening text messages last week, forcing Clement to keep her home from school.