To think playing with a dead bird is wrong?

[plaintomatopasta]

So a bit of back story. I'm a teacher and was sent outside to cover a boys pe lesson. They're 14/15yr old and in mainstream education but the bottom set. Whilst outside we were playing a game of softball and the ball went wide so one ran after it and came back with a massive dead seagull. He then proceeded to kick it, chase other students with it and stab a pen through its head.

I shouted at him and tried to get him to leave it alone but he ignored me. I was the only teacher out there and none of the other boys are really trustworthy enough to go get a teacher. They all found it hilarious and encouraged him! I just ended up sending the entire group inside again back to the changing rooms whilst I got the deputy head and he dealt with them.

After the lesson I was really upset and I thought it was really sick and wrong that they found it hilarious. Not a single other teacher or anyone I've spoken to about it saw a problem and generally said "boys will be boys".

AIBU and a bit weird. I actually cried!

[plaintomatopasta]

My school has many wonderful points and discipline in the wider school is good but there's select groups that seem to just be written off and that's a massive failing in my mind. I have a lot of patience for the students and if they want to come chat with me I'm always around willing. It's a shame sometimes that, as you say, pack mentality can take over quickly.

[AtomHeart]

You sound like a lovely teacher, pasta

[Beeziekn33ze]

OP Horrible experience for you, I'm wondering what I would have done. Probably lost it verbally (preferably without obscenities!) at the boy with the bird. Maybe blowing a whistle and calling 'Freeze' to the others when I got them near me, to try and get the less involved ones under control. Quite likely I wouldn't have been any more successful than you! 🍷
In one big city comp I had several similar 'bottom band' groups but never out of doors. In fact PE was organised across the year group so no teacher would be as isolated as you were. A group like that wouldn't have been together for PE. I did a lot of cover in many subjects but never for outdoor games. The school discipline strategies were very tight and the head exceptional, both kind and firm, so I coped. I'd previously taught primary for several years so I was lucky my first experience of secondary was, overall, so positive.
You should have had more support from senior staff, the boy with the bird should have been punished. As DS tells me 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'!

[ArcheryAnnie]

I'd think it was weird and nasty, too, OP. I wouldn't think anything bad of a kid who was curious about a dead animal, but to treat it with such disrespect just for the fun of it is just nasty. I know the bird doesn't care, but I'd think there must be something a bit broken about a boy who could do that and not care.

[plaintomatopasta]

@archeryannie I have no problem with curiosity and if it was as simple as poking it with a stick and being interested in it I wouldn't have been bothered. Dead things themselves don't bother me at all as we grew up on a farm like I said. We had quite a few things die from unnatural causes like the cats and foxes attacking them and all it took was moving them somewhere out the way so my little sister didn't see them. I'd have never dreamt of chasing around with anything and stabbing it through the head or mutilating it. It reminded me of the Roald Dahl short story The Swan but not as disturbing.

[LaContessaDiPlump]

Ugh. That sounds horrible and really upsetting op.

When I was around 11, my friend and I came across another girl idly attacking a dead bird (swinging a stick with a nail in it into the bird's body). I freaked the fuck out, screamed at her to leave it alone and took the bird away to bury it. My friend was a bit nonplussed IIRC but went along with it. I was quite upset by the event for a while afterwards; I couldn't understand why she'd behaved like that to something defenseless (albeit dead).

I have two boys now (5/6 yo) and AFAIK they haven't done anything like this. They have a friend who tried to smash an insect I showed them once; I do view him with a slight air of distaste I'm afraid. I don't think it's inevitable behaviour necessarily.

[plaintomatopasta]

I think that's the crux of my issue. I have a lot of difficulty trusting and understanding my emotions and reactions to things so often have to go off other people's reactions. I asked myself though would I have found this funny? Would I have allowed MY child to do this? Would I have been ok that the school just accepted it as "boys will be boys"? And the answer to all those questions is a definite no.

I know it's easy to say now with my child being 12/13 years younger than these boys and he's got a heart of gold. Who's to say that he will be the same as a teen. But surely it's part of my job to make sure he DOESN'T do things like this.

I'm satisfied that whilst crying was maybe an over reaction to the situation (there's reasons), me thinking it was weird and wrong is ok as it seems to be something other people would think too.

Sorry my thread is a bit gross. For every child I teach like this I teach hundreds more the opposite and they're genuinely hilarious! It's apparently still funny to teenage boys that you can use a calculator to write BOOBS and BOOBIES and BOOBLESS. Now that's a case of boys just being immature 😂

[LaContessaDiPlump]

Just wondering: did you lose a close family member or friend growing up (or even recently)? I did, and I think it's had a profund impact on how I feel about death. Maybe that is an influencing factor here.

[plaintomatopasta]

@laContessaDiPlump I didn't lose anyone growing up as far as I remember except my grandad and later on a grandma. Recently my DH's grandma died (September) and that was really upsetting but I'd only known her a few years.

I have a very hard time controlling my emotions that comes from childhood so I think the crying was down to that. My feeling of it being wrong though comes from just being a bit sensitive

[shrunkenhead]

It's worrying and v Lord of the Flies.... while I get he wasn't being cruel (the animal was dead) it was sick and disrespectful. Showing off in front of his mates no doubt played a big part of it...
But I'd watch this one..... such levels of depravity are concerning.