My Ds has brought this poem home from school and been told to learn it. Please come and give me your thoughts on wether I should speak to the school.

[MTPurse]

As the title says, Ds has came home from school today with a Poem to learn, He has to learn it to be read out between a group of them(apparently he was chosen to read it as he is good at drama/being dramatic).

This is all I know, I have no other info on what it is about and why he has to learn it yet

Now I am not into poetry at all so maybe I just don't 'get it' but I really think this is completely unsuitable for Children due to the context. I am not a strict parent at all but Guns , Knives, Swords and Violence have no part in my family life and I will not allow my ds to play cod and stuff like that, in fact we have had numerous arguments about this.

Personally, I get the humour in it and think it would be fine on a staffroom wall but aibu to think it is not suitable for children?

Here is the poem:

The Lesson

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
his voice was lost in the din

'The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget'

He picked on a boy who was shouting
and throttled him then and there
then garrotted the girl behind him
(the one with grotty hair)

Then sword in hand he hacked his way
between the chattering rows
'First come, first severed' he declared
'fingers, feet or toes'

He threw the sword at a latecomer
it struck with deadly aim
then pulling out a shotgun
he continued with his game

The first blast cleared the backrow
(where those who skive hang out)
they collapsed like rubber dinghies
when the plug's pulled out

'Please may I leave the room sir? '
a trembling vandal enquired
'Of course you may' said teacher
put the gun to his temple and fired

The Head popped a head round the doorway
to see why a din was being made
nodded understandingly
then tossed in a grenade

And when the ammo was well spent
with blood on every chair
Silence shuffled forward
with its hands up in the air

The teacher surveyed the carnage
the dying and the dead
He waggled a finger severely
'Now let that be a lesson' he said

Roger McGough :

I've just found this. It's so touching. Why could they not have read this instead:

First Day at School by Roger McGough

A millionbillionwillion miles from home
Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)
Why are they all so big, other children?
So noisy? So much at home they
Must have been born in uniform
Lived all their lives in playgrounds
Spent the years inventing games
That don't let me in. Games
That are rough, that swallow you up.

And the railings.
All around, the railings.
Are they to keep out wolves and monsters?
Things that carry off and eat children?
Things you don't take sweets from?
Perhaps they're to stop us getting out
Running away from the lessins. Lessin.
What does a lessin look like?
Sounds small and slimy.
They keep them in the glassrooms.
Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.

I wish I could remember my name
Mummy said it would come in useful.
Like wellies. When there's puddles.
Yellowwellies. I wish she was here.
I think my name is sewn on somewhere
Perhaps the teacher will read it for me.
Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.

It had me at yellowwellies 😢

Oh, that one is lovely.

DS is going to start school in September and that poem has made me well up! What a scary place school can be for them. And the last line!

That one is really beautiful

The thing is, it is not over the top bonkersness. Shit like that has actually happened. Older children could grapple with it far better than ten year olds.

Reading that poem made me heavy and I have watched breaking bad, the Godfather, silence of the lambs etc. Gladiator is my best film. So I am not a shrinking violet. But I would not be happy for my child to memorise this even in secondary school and most definitely not aged 10.

I would withdraw them for that lesson if the school refused to budge!

I don't disagree mathanxiety. I am trying to see it from how a child would see it. Maybe it doesn't set out to do what it intended anymore, I don't know. But I'm.not a teacher. I am just nervous at the idea of censoring anything that is much loved by others and has been used by teachers for a long time. If we say this poem is unsuitable then what is next?

Sorry to waffle on, I also think it is suitable for older children. I have said earlier I have discussed it with my older two. My comment above is perhaps reflecting on the fact that there are quite a few posters who wouldn't want it in schools at all. And I fully understand and respect their point of view. I am just wondering about where we draw the line. I don't know myself. I have thought about this thread all weekend. Perhaps I should bow out now. I'm no expert. I just see the poem as black humour.

I can understand people wanting to hold onto writing that has been around in the national psyche for a while. People know his work. I'm sure there's an Aus piece of writing that no longer fits but we keep hold of it.

Coming to it fresh today I find it hard to read.

And I do find the school poem very endearing.

Perhaps an interesting discussion for even older children - should we keep it, why, why not.

We have quietly dropped a lot that is problematic from syllabuses (syllabi?) and from day to day language -- the N word, derogatory references to Jews, women, etc. Early readers and even maths books feature multi ethnic children, whereas schoolbooks from the 60s and 70s used to feature white children with anglo names. This is done as our consciousness of who we are and what we care about changes.

I have qualms about censorship and I am opposed to the cotton wool approach to bringing up children (though I did not let my own DCs watch the nightly news until they were about 12 or so), but age appropriateness needs to be taken into account, as well as developments in society and politics, and I think schools need to be sensitive and to make value judgements, partly to show a decent example.

I grew up in a home where Struwwelpeter had a place of honour in the bookcase. This was a book originally written in German in 1845, and much beloved in my dad's home when he was a boy in the early 1920s.

Here is 'The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb':

"One day Mamma said "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys who suck their thumbs;
And ere they dream what he's about,
He takes his great sharp scissors out,
And cuts their thumbs clean off—and then,
You know, they never grow again."

Mamma had scarcely turned her back,
The thumb was in, Alack! Alack!

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissor-man.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught out little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast,
That both his thumbs are off at last.

Mamma comes home: there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;
"Ah!" said Mamma, "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."

There is a lot in this collection that is jarring. It's not necessarily terribly awful, but the themes we find in children's literature have changed. I think it is safe to say we have moved on, by gradual consensus.

I would actually be inclined to study the McGough poem in history class.

What a rubbish poem. Way too intense for year 5 children. I hate any glamorising of violence. It'd self-indulging and plain stupid. Crap 'culture' so to speak.

You know, as the Scottish lady at the beginning of the thread said that this was dropped from the Scottish syllabus after Dunblane, and the general disquiet felt now, and given when it was written, might it be worth, OP, writing to roger mcgeogh (sp?) to ask him his opinion as to the appropriateness of it for her child's age group? He presents Poetry Please on radio4, so an email to him at BBC radio would surely find him. It would be interesting to get his take on it. Just a thought..

"I grew up in a home where Struwwelpeter had a place of honour in the bookcase. This was a book originally written in German in 1845, and much beloved in my dad's home when he was a boy in the early 1920s."

Gosh Wilhelm bush, i have no time for that authoritarian stuff whatsoever. I hated it when i was a child and the nastiness in Struwwelpeter, suppenkaspar etc. did simply not make sense to me. I have read my great grandmother's auto-biography in which she wrote in a witty but very detailed way how teachers used to abuse and beat her and her classmates. Awful .

It was considered to be ott and incongruous even in my dad's day -- certainly by the time I was a child in the golden age of Sesame Street it was a curiosity.

But even Enid Blyton has been heavily edited for modern consumption.

Ah I remember Struwwelpeter too. I was a thumbsucker, and Dad had a copy of it. Including pictures. Didn't really really work on me, though - what seemed to work was going to junior school and deciding that I was too old.

I've shown it to DS1, via the internet, because he's also a thumbsucker. Doesn't seem to have bothered him (or stopped him either!) - but that poem in the OP would bother the hell out of him. Granted he's only 8; but, like me, things get in his head visually and he'd have nightmares over it.

I've already said I think it's inappropriate at age 10, and nothing in this long thread has made me change my mind. Horrible Histories are not the same thing, as they are things that were in the past and we can say "but these things don't happen any more"; ditto Shakespeare etc.

This poem - not so much. These things happen NOW. And are therefore that much more scary, immediate and real for children. The satire is largely lost because of this, IMO.

this poem is a violent self-indulgent stream of consciousness.

George lakoff's philosophy is interesting. This is what he talks about in his work Metaphors we live by

stream of consciousness

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff

"Non-metaphorical thought is for Lakoff only possible when we talk about purely physical reality. For Lakoff the greater the level of abstraction the more layers of metaphor are required to express it. People do not notice these metaphors for various reasons. One reason is that some metaphors become 'dead' and we no longer recognize their origin. Another reason is that we just don't "see" what is "going on".

For instance, in intellectual debate the underlying metaphor is usually that argument is war (later revised as "argument is struggle"):

He won the argument.
Your claims are indefensible.
He shot down all my arguments.
His criticisms were right on target.
If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out."

In a nutshell we should choose our metaphors wisely.

Even Enid Blyton?

My son's teacher read the Faraway Tree to the class 2 years ago. I almost sent in a letter of complaint but decided to pick my battles...

Dame Slapalot and her school for Angry Pixies....What the Fuck!

Saucepan man

Moon face

Fanny and Dick or whatever they were called

need I go on

I only ever read the FF and Secret Seven and now consider myself lucky, for many reasons.

Apologies for not updating sooner but I have had a lot of RL crap going on.

I went into the school and spoke to the HT, it was she who decided on the poem without running it past any other members of staff.

The poem was not for the whole class but for certain pupils who she though would perform it in a dramatic manner, It was for a music and drama festival which is taking place in our city next month and was to be performed in church against other schools in a competition.
It was going to be performed in front of adults and they would be judged.

She was really nice about it and when I aired my concerns she agreed she had not thought about how the poem came across, She said she would have a staff meeting and get back to me.

She got back to me the same day after speaking to the other staff members and they agreed that the poem was inappropriate.

They are now reading Cousin Lesleys See Through Stomach by Brian Patten.

I am now off to read all the replies

That was a good result, MTPurse. Well done.

Off to read about the See-Through Stomach ...

Strewth. It's satire. I've known this poem since I was about 8 or 9, along with 'I'm a Nooligan' and many other Roger McGough poems. It made me laugh then and it still does now. I particularly like the stanza where the Head chucks in a grenade.

It. is. meant. to. be. funny. Kids over a certain age (about 9 or 10, depending on the individual child) will get this. Some adults won't, apparently.

No, because as explained at length, the funny aspect of blood and gore in a classroom has somewhat faded, what with all the school shootings that have taken place since it was penned. I suspect that kids over a certain age would wonder what was meant to be funny here, since many of them would see the news.

Good result. If a child wrote that poem, social services would be called

I had this in a book called poems for 10 yr olds when I was a kid and loved it . Hope your ds does to .