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 worked with a lot of refugee and asylum seeking children. Many of whom had experience violence not dissimilar to that described in the poem. Can't imagine it would go down to well in that school. I'm also usually fairly laid back but I'm having a bit of a sense of humour fail wroth this. I just don't think it's funny or particularly interesting.

I wish I hadn't read it now!

Lady I was that kid too. I also wouldn't have said anything - but my teacher noticed the wince at that phrase and it did flag me to the safeguarding team.

A lot of the poems in secondary school are dark. This is the same. It keeps children's attention and teaches concepts well.

I think this one in particular is a bit damaged by the US school shootings and how frequent they seem to be now, it doesn't seem as crazy as it probably did when it was written - it's shockingly normal, like reading a news report, rather than something extreme to prove a point.

Presumably ds has ready it already? I'd ask if he's comfortable with it, and let him carry on if he is.

I would be against it not because I think kids will dash out and commit murder but because my children know of school attacks, might miss the satire and would end up thinking they are at risk of a school shooting.

Those saying "I read it back in the 80s and it was fine" are surely missing the point. Today there are school shootings. Much harder to make the case for satire when real children get shot in real schools.

I remember studying this in school when I was about 11. It makes me feel nostalgic.

We all appreciated the humour and the language techniques covered in the lesson. Reading it as an adult, is a different experience but that's because we bring our baggage and knowledge of history to it. Most DCs (if not all) won't see it the same way as an adult.

So, if DS brought it home, I wouldn't be complaining. It feels like a rite of passage and I'd be sad if that was lost because of acts of violence. To me, that feels like even more of a reason to keep covering it iywim. in a keep carrying on type of defiance

It's a great, well written poem imo and I have read it to my children (from my own childhood copy of 'You Tell Me'), with glee on both sides, many times.

And the satire worked much better when it was written when the thought of a gun in a class room was utterly ridiculous.
Sadly not ridiculous at all today.

I don't like it and I think primary age is too young.

My dd is 10 and I would be really shocked if she bought that home, I would speak to the school. That would give me nightmares let alone dd

Hmmm. Not keen on this... was on board until the bits with the guns, just doesn't seem funny to me.

My DD is in yr 6. She would freak the hell out if given this. She's still having nightmares about Beowulf. Definitely something you need to consider carefully. I would prefer it not to be done personally in current climate.

I wouldn't consider myself a delicate little flower but I really wouldn't like my year 6 dd coming home with that. We love David Walliams and Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan but this is so graphic that the humour is lost for me. She would be a bit freaked out by it I reckon, the descriptions of garroting and grenades. Mind you, my year 1 dd would probably love it, nothing fazes her. Her favourite film when she was 3 was Coraline.

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I agree that contextually it is inappropriate given US school shootings and other acts of violence.

On the other hand the over the top reactions on this thread make me agree with Ubik that literature and poetry more specifically is not always about making us feel good and cheery and comfortable but is about challenging and being thought provoking and sometimes that means being provocative
And that's not a bad thing.

But probably not aged 10.

I would only complain that it's quite long to learn by heart. I think the poem is fine, now it has aged it can teach them about context too.

DS who is a similar age is aware of Dunblane. I think the poem would upset him.

I wouldn't want my 10 year old son to be reading that out loud at school tbh. There is too much violence in the World already. I think I might ask the teacher if she could come up with something more suitable for a Primary School age pupil. I find the content of that poem shocking!

I also cannot understand the people saying its a crap poem. No it's not. It may not be to your taste but as an exercise in poetic technique and writing verse it is excellent.

Absolutely shocked at the pearl clutching in this thread. Totally suitable for 10 year olds, Have none of your kids read Horrible Histories? Grizzly Tales?

Like other posters, this out me in mind of Larkin.

I just don't think it's appropriate for a 10 year old, though, certainly not nowadays with the proliferation of school massacres.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-484922/Horror-pupils-taught-violent-poem-teacher-attacking-students-guns.html

It is no worse than Spike Milligan but it is not appropriate in the current climate of school shootings, terroism etc.

It just feels too raw and too realistic to be funny. I think I would say something if it was my dc.

Violen poems, sure, no problem. School massacres when kids have been massacred in schools? No. What next, a jaunty verse about sexual abuse?

I'm going on now but...

At age 10 I think it ok to be concerned children will get upset and be affected by this poem. I do hope that those same posters don't feel the same when that child is 15 and faced with challenging texts. Because again sometimes literature and poetry deals with difficult subject matter and that's ok. Important even.

YANBU!
I work in a range of schools. If I saw this in the staff room I would mention it to SLT as it is in very poor taste.

At what point did it become 'normal' for a poem about someone mass murdering children in a school ok?! I suspect if it were a poem about a student murdering significant adults in their life in a 'satirical' tone it wouldn't make it into the syllabus!

Er where is all this pearl clutching and over the top reactions?

Most people have said that 10 yr olds are too young for this.

By the way, I would totally share this poem with my kids at home, as I have with some of the gory Roald Dahl stuff ('she whipped a pistol from her knickers'), but it's in poor taste at school.