For one reason or another, it seems that lately the topics I’ve been choosing to write about have been at least somewhat controversial, if not downright unpopular.

After recently discussing suicide pilots, sexism and the bashing of clean energy protestors, I’ve come to the conclusion that I might as well just go out and look for the stuff that people would absolutely hate to see me write about. Why not? I figure a good deal of the readers out there most likely already hate my guts, and even the more controversial points of social happenings must be addressed.

            So one could only imagine my delight when I came across a recent news story about a North Carolina teacher named Rex Roland who is receiving some negative attention for his teaching methods. Apparently, at least one parent of one of Roland’s students are taking exception to the fact that Roland sometimes writes comments such as “loser” on his sixth grade students’ papers.

Perfect, I thought, now all I have to do is call Lucifer and make sure he’s cool with me being his advocate for the umpteenth time.

            Let me get the part out of the way where I try to avoid angering absolutely everyone by saying this: yes, I know, verbal abuse and the berating of a child are wrong; this is information that everyone can agree upon. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of young children, I can at least admit abusing a child in any way, shape or form probably doesn’t look very good on a resume for several reasons. In a scenario in which a teacher purposefully physically harms sexually abuses or even screams at a child, that teacher should be fired, because that teacher is really not doing his or her job properly.

            But here, that is not the case. The teacher was indeed doing his job properly; in fact, he was going above and beyond what your average teacher usually does. The main point to recognize here is that most of Roland’s students’ parents are aware of the fact that he frequently calls their students “losers” in class and while grading their work. Yet, most of the parents are actually completely okay with this. In fact, most of them embrace it.  

            According to an article regarding the situation published online on AolNews, many parents defended Roland’s actions, and claimed his methods were “progressive” in that he engaged students on a level most teachers don’t, and that he was thus able to reach out to students as not only an authoritarian figure and a superior, but as a peer too. Therefore, according to students and parents alike, Roland was making a connection to students that most teachers never could. So essentially, this guy was trying, albeit in an odd way, to reach out and actively engage his students in an educational environment instead of treating them like a herd of sheep he has to babysit like most teachers do.           Where does this parent get off trying to get this guy fired just because the parent’s child can’t take a jesting part of this teacher’s approach that was working wonders for other students?

            According to the same article, one of Roland’s other students, Ian Andrews, Roland is, “the cool teacher that people wanted to be in class with.” This teacher managed to achieve the nigh impossible by making most of his sixth grade students actually want to go to school and learn. Yeah, no, that sounds terrible; we can’t be having any of that.

            I mean, God forbid anybody’s child actually develops some thick skin in school any time soon. While we’re at it, why don’t we fire the teachers who fail their students? After all, that’s a lot more detrimental than calling someone a “loser.” Has this parent heard how these little sixth grade angels tend to address their peers and their teachers? The term “loser” is practically a term of endearment compared to the garbage that probably gets thrown around in their daily conversations. The exception is that in those cases, it’s not a well-intentioned teacher who’s helping anyone’s education of the real world saying it, because it’s some snot-nosed punk who insults people simply because it makes him feel awesome.

            Sure, you could argue words might carry a bit more weight than usual if a teacher says it. Still, even if using terms like “loser” wasn’t doing any good (which it arguably was in this particular case) this sort of thing doesn’t entail the end of the free world as we know it, as many outraged parents are making it seem it should.

I’m no experienced parent, but if I had a sixth grader who was upset that a teacher wrote “loser” on his or her paper, I’d probably respond thusly: “Hey, little Timmy/Tammy, I know you’re upset, but there’s actually many worse things in life than being called a ‘loser’ by someone whose job description doesn’t require that he like you. It turns out life sucks some times. Here’s your helmet, champ.”

            Is it an unorthodox method to call your students losers? No one’s arguing against that. But unorthodox and bad are not congruent terms. In fact, if Roland’s methods were as effective as many of the students and parents suggest, then call the kids whatever you want, and forget about the overly sensitive parents.

            Dave Coffey is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].