to be upset by this?

[FermezLaBouche]

Minor details changed in the hope of preserving anonymity!

A teacher in our school hired one of those rentable incubators in order to hatch some chicks (Life Cycles in Science.) It came with really strict and clear instructions. Today she informs us she had "helped some of the eggs along" as the kids were desperate to see them hatch. End result - 3 dead chicks. Kids upset, even though the dead chicks were quickly removed. Idiot teacher's attitude along the "oops lol" lines, ie doesn't seem to give a shit.

I am so annoyed! I won't say anything as this woman is senior to me, and I'm new and really don't want to rock any boats, but what an idiotic thing to do.

Needed to vent, sorry!

They learnt a valuable lesson in patience.

Our nursery did this with chicks (although didnt help them along / kill them)

They now are chickens and the children help care for them

By 'helped them along' do you mean she cracked some of the unhatched eggs?

catwoman i can think of numerous better ways to teach patience

What an evil cold hearted murdering bitch.

Surely that negates the lesson on the life cycle. The life cycle is rarely helped along by someone untrained.

I'm assuming she cracked the shells regardless of how she "helped them along".

You can only know they are dead if you do as a dead chick doesn't hatch itself...

Mind you if you cracked a shell on a chick that wasn't ready to hatch you would have a live chick that would die shortly after. Not an immediately dead chick.

I'm finding this story confusing.

Turning up the temp to "help them along" - you would still wait for them to hatch rather than cracking them.

Cracking the shell to "help them along" - you would have a live but prem chick which would more than likely die very soon after but it wouldn't be dead when the egg was cracked and the OP didn't say that the chicks DIED but that they were dead. Possibly semantics - but I would expect children to be more traumatised by chicks dying in front of them than being dead so you would think the point would have been made.

Unless she turned the temp up AND cracked the shells - but then you would expect them all to be dead not just three.

Mind you the OP said she'd changed identifying details - so maybe they were caterpillars not chicks?? .

I'd say she heard them pipping, and decided to help them out by peeling some of the shell off.

If a blood vessel gets nicked doing that, the chicks will basically bleed to death. It takes them a long time to get out for a good reason, it's so that doesn't happen.

Stupid and ignorant yes, but I've heard of so many people doing just that, mostly because they were worried about the length of time the chick was taking to get out.

Not good if she is responsible for their deaths. However, as someone who hatches chicks every year, a fair few are dead/die soon after hatching. It is also sometimes necessary to help weaker chicks out of the shell if they get too tired half-way through, although you wouldn't start them off.

My DSis takes an incubator into the local pre-school but the ladies there are sensible and check with her if they are unsure about what they are doing.

Bleugh to you too, SoupInaBasket.

Not sure how a person could be that idiotic, OP!!! Never fails to surprise me, how thick some people are.