To email this teacher?

[LadyWire]

My DD is 18 and at 6th form college. To avoid dripfeeding she has ASD, depression and anxiety. She is extremely emotionally underdeveloped compared to her peers.


Her a-level English teacher told a tale today about seeing a cat being hit by a car and hitting it with a tennis racquet to "put it out of its misery" before throwing it to the side of the road. He then kept referring back to it throughout the lesson.


DD has come out of college inconsolable. I've emailed the teacher telling him that a) what he did was appalling and b) it's not an appropriate subject to speak to a class about. AIBU to be angry enough to contact him or should I have ignored it? Tbh I'm tempted to report him to college and to the RSPCA.

[ivenoideawhatimdoing]

In relation to the teacher, OP, that’s appalling. If someone in an office kept talking about that to a colleague it was obviously upsetting management would tell them to shut up. I don’t see why it’s any different in a student environment

[HotPotatoePies]

ivenoidea it’s more likely that there was no cat and no bludgening, that it was an example of how a situation or story can escalate - themes in the book they are studying.

This makes more sense than to assume the teacher has just started to display psychotic tendencies.

[BertrandRussell]

"So you would all hit a cat (presumable a family pet) with a tennis racket to finish it off as opposed to I don’t know... taking it to the vets?? Emergency Vet Clinics don’t charge. That cat could have belonged to anyone, what an awful thing to do."

Not sure what ownership has to do with suffering.....

[Quartz2208]

Because the chances are he did not actually kill the cat. In the further context of it being an English Lit A Level class on the Great Gatsby it makes much more sense that it was a story that he used to emphasize and look at both Myrtle's death and the dangers of lying and embellishing a story. A relatively common thing to do in English Lit A levels classes.

That sounds far more likely than the teacher actually killed a cat with a tennis racket (again far more likely in the time The Great Gatsby was set given the change in weight and materials a tennis racket is) and that he would rather talk about that then actually teach a lesson.

So really OP it is whether now it is just your daughter who failed to get the point and thought it was real (perhaps because he was too subtle in the point he was making) or if she missed it

[Tiredtomybones]

I don’t think he was recounting a real story. I think he was making it up for context or to promote discussion. If he was saying “and back to the lesson” I think he wanted the students to think the story was a juicy bit of gossip - he did it to get their attention (to focus on a certain point) and, well, it worked didn’t it. I have done similar myself (although never about killing cats) and it’s one of those things students will remember so, in future lessons, or at exam revision time, the teacher will say “just like in x anecdote I told you, the main character does etc...” and the students will clearly remember the lesson, the discussion, their feelings etc. If I’m right with this, I actually think it’s quite a shrewd move by the teacher.

[Pennypickle]

Tiredtomybones you beat me to it! :)

When it comes to exam time every single one of those students will vividly remember that lesson. There is doubt they all know the meaning of the word "Brutal" and be able to relay their thoughts.

Kudos to the teacher!

A much more effective way of getting the point across than reading from a boring text.

[Pennypickle]

Oops - No doubt!

[Willow2017]

He described the place in ops dd's village where it happened. One of the pupils pointed to her and said "it might be one of your cats" yet he still returned to the incident more than once.
Him saying "anyway back to the lesson" suggests that it had nothing to do with the lesson and he wasnt using his story as part of the lesson at all. People say that when they have gone off track and want to get back to the matter in hand. Until he gets back to op no-one knows for sure why he thought killing a cat was an appropriate 'story' to tell his class before the lesson started.

And if anyone has read Wet's posts it is entirely possible he didnt actually kill it nor that it needed 'putting down' anyway. Its scary to think the first response of many people to an unjured animal is to kill it. My friend is a vet nurse and they have animals brought in from rtas who have made a full recovery i would hate to think some of them could have just been bashed on the head and left at the side of the road.

[MaisyPops]

So in summary:

Teacher teaches a lesson abd tells an anecdote linked to a situation in a book. The student for a number of reasons finds it upsetting. The student decides he is a cat murderer and is now worried about thr next lesson
The teacher did nothing wrong.
It is an A LEVEL lesson.
The student may benefit from additoonal pastoral support given her background so she can develop skills to deal with difficult topics.

I'm slightly worried about the number of people who seem to think that my DD should be denied an education because of her conditions
OP you are being disingenuous and over emotive here. People aren't saying your DD should be denied an education.
People are saying that if any child in such a sensitive place that they are distressed and traumatised by sensitive or upsetting issuea then studying English Literature at A Level seems an odd choice

(unless you go down the logic of some on thia thread which is: anecdote is upsetting, people point of literature is full of sad issues, but that doesn't couny because it's not real, ok well here are a number if real topics, that doesn't count either. HE BRUTALLY MURDERED A CAT!')

[Moussemoose]

You don't expect to be told something like that in an English lesson

And there is the problem. You absolutely should expect to hear about difficult and distressing topics in an English Lit lesson. You will read about difficult topics and class discussions bring forth issues and anecdotes that are challenging.

Surely you must realise Eng Lit is not all poetry about fluffy wabbits?

[mirime]

I took part in plenty of robust and heated discussions in college doing A Level English Lit. Nobody brought up any personal experiences of killing anything.

A much more effective way of getting the point across than reading from a boring text.

What an odd thing to say. I'm really not a Jane Austen fan, didn't find studying Pride and Prejudice boring. Reading it for pleasure, now that is boring.

I think the anecdote was unnecessary and unpleasant.

[Horridemma]

So we are not reporting the teacher and college to the RSPCA as the story had a link with the text that was being delivered

Oh dear - massive over reaction

[MaisyPops]

Moussemoose
But that's the problem isn't it.
There are people on here (and you hear it at universities too) who think the world should sanitise everything on thr off chance someone doesn't like it. It's all part of the slap trigger warnings on everything culture.

I would absolutely expect similar topics to be discussed in English.

In thr last year we have had discussions on:

• treatment of women in wars over the years
  
• child sexual exploitation
  
• postbtraumatic stress disorder
  
• mental health
  
• murder. Well, lots of murder because ut's English
  
• sex ahd relationships
  
• lady macbeth discussing how she would brutally murder her own baby whilst breastfeeding it
  
• poverty in victorian england to now
  
• changing nature of relationships
  
• rape and consent
  

That covera a few. All legitimaye topics. All emerge out of our departmebt plans.

I've shared anecdotes of trips olto Auschwitz and yhr battle fields (one poster on here, with their wealth of experience, suggested I stopped doing trips abd spent more time teaching )
Some students have shared things too. E.g. I hadn't seen Gunpowder on BBC but one of my gcse students had and we were discussing treason and religion in Jacobean England so they told the class someyhing gory that happened.

All entirely appropriate.

[MaisyPops]

Horridemma
But there always is a massive revelation once the actual details come out on threads like these.
An OP comes on outraged by somethibg and spin a story in a way to shock and anger. People get wpund up. Others say 'actually maybe it's more complex than that' and then thr smug 'blah blah you can tell who teachera are on here' comments start. Then it turns out that actually the situation isn't quite what was presented.

Whereas you get a thread with a real issue and a sensible and grounded parent and it's a totally different thread. E.g. there is a thread at the moment whete a mum cried at parenta evening. Thr almost unanimous verdict (from parents abd teachers!) was that the teacher was wrong and the OP should contact school.

It's amazing the difference being calm, reaosnable and not having knee jerk emotional responses off the back of 'my child says...'

[Horridemma]

OP's daughter is in year 12 - there will potentially be a few lessons that she will not like.

[Quartz2208]

I suspect the cat was an interesting way of bringing together various parts of the novel, Gatsby lies, Myrtle dying in a car accident, her husband subsequently killing himself and Gatsby because of it (putting them both out of their misery. Its actually very clever way of bringing together the themes of the book. The other pupil may well have realised.

Or he actually killed a cat!

I had more debates in my English Literature class then any other

[Whiskeyqueen]

" Eng Lit is not all poetry about fluffy wabbits?'

It is about tending the rabbits though

Still at least there's no cat murdering in 'Of Mice and Men' so it'll probably be fine..

[MaisyPops]

I've heard getting a pup is a great solution if you're someone who struggles keeping rabbits alive. what could go wrong?

[Moussemoose]

Whiskeyqueen

It's just a woman who is killed in Of Mice and Men, so not anything that really matters like a cat.

[MaisyPops]

And yet there's always a couple each year who don't feel sorry for her because she was a 'tart'.
Attitudes towards violence to women. Another very educational ajd relevant discussion topic for an English lesson.

Porphyria's lover to continue ti murder of women maybe?

[MrsDustyBusty]

It doesnt explain him killing the cat. Let's see what he says in his reply

Yes, he's answerable to mumsnet.

[Horridemma]

Well that's the thing with people moaning about teachers. There are so many gripes about so many things - it is not practical for a teacher to address everything.

Like the story of the boy who cried wolf once too often

[Horridemma]

[shakeyourcaboose]

horridemma is squirrel motivatan Ofsted requirement?

[shakeyourcaboose]

-motivation! I couldn't motivate a woodlouse....or have the stamina to be a teacher!