Professor Locs, aka Charles Easley, is an educator who explores race, class, gender, sexuality, media and popular culture with humor and insight. His column is published here each Wednesday. Opinions expressed are solely his own. Click here to read his blog.

We can all remember having a childhood crush on a teacher when we were younger. These youthful infatuations were, for the most part, very benign. Well, that is not the case for one elementary school boy. Some of you may already be familiar with this story. Emanyea Lockett was reportedly suspended from school when a substitute teacher overheard him refer to his teacher as cute.

Really? Is this where we are in our public schools?

I was even more intrigued by this story when I found out that the kid was right in our backyard and attended Brookside Elementary in Gaston County. School systems in this region are dealing with everything from overcrowding, budget cuts, rezoning and being hopelessly understaffed, but this is what they choose to concentrate on during these trying times?

I remember having a crush on a second grade teacher’s aide because she took an interest in my art and told me I was talented. She was obviously being nice since her interpretation of my brilliantly illustrated dragon was actually a picture of our pet mutt beagle, Doofus … LOL.

Chiquita Lockett, Emanyea’s mother, received a certified letter from the school explaining that her son had been accused of sexual harassment. Also in the letter school officials said Emanyea said a teacher was fine in a “suggestive tone.” The kid is 9 years old, and in his kid vernacular “fine” is basically the old folks equivalent to “cute.”

I have been invited to be a guest speaker at several schools, and I am amazed at young boys sagging jeans, speaking belligerently — as well as young girls acting way too grown. This was not the case for all the students, but some of these kids are off the chain. I was happy in some cases that I did not get shanked walking down the hallway back to my car. So, the scenario of a kid calling his teacher cute seems pretty harmless in comparison.

School officials, in the letter sent to Ms. Lockett, reportedly said that in addition to the comment about the teacher, Emanyea had been warned about addressing other students using the “N” word and “B” word. They said all of the comments are inappropriate and violate the student code of conduct. I do not condone the behavior, but the truth is these kids see the exact same terminology used in most acceptance speeches by many rappers during the BET awards. Lesson, monitor what your kids watch.

During an interview with WSOC TV, Chiquitta Lockett shared that: “What's in that letter, what they accuse him about — if that's true, I should have been notified about it. And if so, then I would have seen where a suspension would have taken place.”

She is correct. We have to put this into perspective. We live in a society that we have viral videos of teachers in all out brawls with students in classrooms. This student was not suspended for the use of the “N” word or the “B” word, acts that I find more egregious. Heck, he could recite almost any random lyric from Little Wayne and be more offensive than calling his teacher cute.

According to www.schooldigger.com, a site used by parents for factual comparisons, Brookside Elementary in 2010 had an enrollment of 704 students, including 407 white, 170 African American and 115 Hispanic. I bring up these stats to make the point that do we have qualified educators who are appropriately trained to deal with a diverse populace?

Case in point: The substitute teacher could have used that incident as a teachable moment to speak to appropriate references towards women in a public forum. Instead of overreacting and turning the incident into an unnecessary disciplinary action.

I believe the more poignant picture is how skewed the school’s system of measurement is as it relates to appropriate behavior. It is a sobering fact that we live in a society that, even if the allegations are true, a young boy was ultimately chastised not for demeaning young girls but saying his teacher was cute.

Was this completely blown out of proportion? If he had said something more grown like “I want to tap that,” this kid could be doing some real jail time.

This could be a new reality TV series. What would you call the show — “Grammar School Kids Gone Wild” or “Victorian Administrative Justice?” What are your thoughts?

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