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 remember that poem from my own schooldays in the 90s. We never had to learn it though and the class was 12/13 not 10.

I knew what the poem would be before I opened the thread.

I used to teach it with lower secondary many years ago. Love it, but wouldn't use it now.

My kids are gruesome and would like it. I have no problem with it at all.

It is a poem of it's time. I don ' t think people would have fussed about it in the 80's, when it was just a humorous poem. But times have changed since then.

Dd found it hilarious at about 8/9, can't say she was either traumatised or became immune to violence.

I seem to remember that McGough wrote after being asked if he was in favour of capital punishment in school (the person confused capital and corporal. He is mocking those who claim that corporal punishment 'teaches them a lesson'. But that needs to be explained for someone to understand it.

Age of the children is important. Age 10'is too young, IMO, although some 10 yos would understand it and be able to get a lot out of it, but many would not.

And context is equally important. School shootings, terrorism, dead children washing up in beaches, Isis beheading people. What's happening in the news is harrowing enough.

War poetry is completely different (although even then, war poetry is not unusual in primary).

I remember doing this poem when I was about 10 (around 1981/2) at my very naice girls' private school.

I would not be happy, if at ten, one of my dc's came home with this poem to learn

WTAF? Safeguarding issue?! It's a humourous poem that is not very much worse than horrible histories or Roald Dahl's revolting rhymes.

I would have thought it'd be perfect for a 10 year old boy..

Girls can enjoy satirical
Violence too

I remember loving this Larkin poem st school:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I'd be a bit uneasy at this too OP.

Secondarily as given recent massacres HAVE occurred but primarily - and pretty awfully - there is a very good chance that in a class of 30 or so there may be well be a child who is horribly used to lines along the gist of : "I'm gonna teach you a lesson you'll never forget you little piece of shit ...

I know I'm not alone in this so I'm not asking for sympathy or anything, but I was that child and it would have done me no favours hearing it in class, satire or otherwise (& I wouldn't even have 'got' the 'satire' part as wouldn't really have known then what that meant).

I don't think it's appropriate for 10 year olds and I am speaking as someone who is generally pretty liberal in what my kids are/have been exposed to - IE the 'They Fuck You Up' one would have been fine with me as a parent, but this one - and that line in particular - just seems too risk laden to me given that most recepients of lines like that at home don't tend to make themselves known to teachers etc as otherwise they 'know what they'll get'

I might be way off beam and maybe all the kids in DS's class have fabulous home lives but statistics suggest the risk of one of them NOT having fab parents but ones like mine are, unfortunately, quite high.

Sorry to bring in such a downer of a view, but that was my reality and it would have been really damaging to me - & no before someone (quite legitimately) flags it as an opportunity, it wouldn't have served to 'open a window of dialogue' about it either, so there isn't even that redeeming feature given kids like me knew/know to keep their mouths shut.

Fuck that's longer than I meant it to be

Thank you all for your replies, it is really interesting to see the different views on this.

Totally inappropriate for any age in school.

No one in my class ever shot anyone from reading this. From the Internet, maybe. Vintage literary satire, no.

I think it's awful. It just seems pitched wrong to me, it's not outlandish enough to be funny or cartoonish enough. It just is graphic. The line about putting a gun to his temple and pulling the trigger in particular made me wince. I think the fact that things like this sadly do happen in schools makes it just totally inappropriate. I have a dd in year 5, and she would be really upset by something like this.

it makes me uneasy that people these days are so unwilling to unwilling to face challenging material.

Yet many of these parents turn a blind eye to their children playing CoD or watching 12a films with visceral violence.

Doesn't happen in schools outside the US. If you're in Europe, thats not a very sensible objection.

I wouldn't have a problem with it. Kids that age can appreciate that its not real. It's just a poem.

i remember that poem, one of my favourites from when i was a child, it was in one of my poetry books and i knew it word for word :)

i know its not pc these days, but its just a poem.

I don't see the problem either. The take home message of the poem doesn't support violence. It openly mocks violence. Read between the lines, that's what these children will be learning to do... That's the point of poetry. Not flowers and rainbow bollox.

It's a cracking poem to teach to kids because it works on different levels.

Whenever I've used it: everyone has enjoyed the lesson. Weaker students have been able to comment on, & explain, the alliteration ('g' sounds - like being choked. Sorry, sensitive types) & more able students have appreciated the hyperbole.

I'm quite careful about the texts I teach. I've vetoed gentle, clever novels like Millions & Skellig because I've known a student has lost a parent/had a younger sibling been very I'll, for example.

I have never, ever, known a child not relish The Lesson. It's great fun.

At my last school we ended up putting a note on the Scheme of Learning to the effect that it had been known to generate the odd parental complaint. I still taught it most years, but I do remember advising an NQT who'd already upset a vocal mum over something else that she might want to do First Day At School as an alternative, & save herself the flak. Shame, really.

It reminds me of Dunblane

Inappropriate, too graphic and especially in this day and age its in really bad taste. It doesn't matter if it would incite a child to violence or not (although who can categorically be sure? eg in USA Im sure parents and friends were absolutely sure the young men would never do such a thing) I just don't see anything funny, satirical or educational in a rhyme about a class of children being systematically and violently slaughtered

Whats the incentive here for the children reading it out? Is it to cause uproarious laughter? I can't imagine what else it could be for. If anyone finds it upsetting to learn or hear will they be told "don't be silly?"

Of all the poems they could learn, why that one? What is so brilliant about it? Perhaps because the unthinkable is always deemed fascinating, avant garde, clever, close to the edge...until the unthinkable happens. Violence is not funny in any context, vintage, modern, whichever.

Its horrible and no, I wouldn't have wanted my DCs to learn it at that age, even I wish Id not read it here.

It's a horrible poem. The language is far too graphic. I take the point that it is a satire on violence but I didn't read it like that on first reading (and I have a good degree in Literature). Agree with the poster who said they wouldn't want a child reading it and having those images stuck in their head. I'm sure there are far better poems if you want to teach children about satire.

I had this via the Beaver book of Skool verse at 8/9. Still sitting in my bookcase and loved it.