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.

I think killing a suffering cat that was obviously dying anyway is probably a kindness. The teacher has taken the trouble to stop his car to do this - there's not reason not to believe this wasn't the case. The idea that anybody would come out to rescue it is terribly naive, sorry.

Big difference between 26 and18 ModreB

Mine are adults, living in the world and managing fine most of the time. In part due to the support and understanding of those along the way that gave enough of a fuck to look at what was happening and think ‘OK, could I have handled this differently, could I adapt to my student a little’ Rather than seeing a disability as a major problem, and wishing the student would just leave.

You are aware I hope, ModreB, that each person with ASD is different to the next. Not everyone will cope as your DS has.

Pengggwn I know 2 different people who have scanners - if a pet is found, dead or alive, they can scan their microchips to trace the owners. That's why owners pay for their pets to be chipped. And she can't get up and leave at any time, she has ASD and would rather die than draw attention to herself by leaving the room. She has said the story had nothing to do with the lesson so I am waiting for the teacher's reply. My DD has severe MH problems and I'm not going to stop advocating for her just because she's 18.

Modre all of us with a child with asd only know how asd affects our own dc.

Presume yours didn't also have severe depression and anxiety?

Op this is not the place to get support. I am sorry you've had a awful day. Come and post in sn

But at what point do you stop intervening. Did you withdraw your daughter from lessons on WW2? Did you withdraw her from the now compulsory education on FGM? Do you hide newspapers from her? Come on!

Aside from her being upset do most of you really think the right thing to do if you find an injured cat is to hit it again and chuck it to the side of the road? Somebody is going to be desperately missing that cat.

Well, yes. I think that's OK, actually. It's not a case for A&E.

Big generalisation there ModreB, most parents of children on the spectrum tend to avoid that sort of sweeping statement.

Is your complaint that the anecdote was told at all, or that it was told to your Dd?

I think thats awful! Most people i know would take it too the vets, not hit it with a racquet!
Dont blame your daughter for being upset!

Pengggwn
Most people by me take any dead/unjured cats to the local vets.

If I got an email saying I'm not impressed with an anecdote that was told in Mr Smith's class because my child didn't like it then I would make a mental log of 'what the hell' and file thr sender into the same category as the parent who accused a colleague of teaching Satanism because Victorian Gothic literature is a problem for their Christian faith.

Someone has said ppst on SN because you'll get no sympathy on here. I think they're being disingenuous. You would have support on here, IF the teacher had failed in their duty to educate your child or had been unprofessional. He hasn't. It was brought up later because OTHER STUDENTS asked about it. To expect class discussion (especially at post16) to avoid any potentially sensitive subject because one member of the group might not like it would be utterly unreasonable.

It would, however, be reasonable to speak to someone pastorally about getting some pastoral support in place to help your child deal with being in 6th form and all that comes with it.

What's the vet going to do with a dead cat? That's surely the coroner...

DS2 was hospitalised at 7yo with depression. He heard voices. He has self harmed. It was a fucking long hard journey that still continues.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but the best thing I did for him was to teach him how to learn, albeit by a different route sometimes, but with 100% support from me and my family, how to deal with the world as an individual. On his own merits.

But your daughter's psychological problems are not the teacher's fault. It is not reasonable to expect the school to avoid any potentially distressing topics in front of her. And quite honestly it's bizarre to think that will make life better for her. She can come out of the English lesson, turn on the computer and see that 26 innocent people have just been shot in a church in Texas.

MrsDustyBusty scan for a chip maybe..

Noones problem, however people do it as they hate the thought of a pet lying on the road.

Its a pretty violent image really. I'd be appalled and complain to his line manager.

The incident had nothing to do with schoolwork.
He let the kids egg him on for more gory details.
Ops daughter had someone suggesting it was one of her cats he was talking about.
No wonder she was upset.

Teachers are suppised to have some idea about the kids they teach surely he should have thought about this before telling a class of barely 16yr olds who appear to have thought it wad funny. Maybe he should have put them right on that idea and when the pupil pointed to ops dd and sugested it was one of hers that should have been another clue to stop talking about it.

How would ops dd have felt if it had been one of her cats and teacher was making a good ol story about battering her cat to death?

If you are not willing to encourage your daughter to find better coping mechanisms to deal with everyday life, then your only option is to support her to do something other than A levels, college, an apprenticeship, any job or be around other people at all in case they say something she finds distressing. This is not the teacher’s issue.

That’s a horrible story to be told. I’m amazed so many people think it’s ok.