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.

[MaisyPops]

It is not reasonable to expect the school to avoid any potentially distressing topics in front of her.
And not just that, avoiding potentially distressing topics actually makes it sort of impossible to teach a lot of English texts.

If someone can't deal with anything potentially sensitive then they need to nit study subjects that have potentially sensitive topics, like English.

In this instance it wasn't curriculum based. But how do you teach Porphyrias Lover, or Owen's war poetry or Othello without dealing with the more gritty topics.

Hell, a popular GCSE text deals with suicide and implied rape and another deals with multiple murder.

[MaisyPops]

Twickerhun
It is no worse than what is in lots of literature taught from y10 upwards and in drama or RE or sociology. That's what a lot of people are getting at.

It wouldn't be my choice of an anecdote but it's not unprofessional and it would be unreasonable to complain.

[somethingDifferent38]

Moussemousse There is a big difference between studying challenging topics, and a teacher talking about beating a small animal to death himself! I have never heard anyone describe something like that first hand, and if a work colleague did, I think people would be appalled, and would probably ask them to stop.
I can't see that beating something with a tennis racket is humane in any way, and even if it was, doing it, and talking repeatedly about it when he should be teaching are entirely different.
My mother died a long and painful death a few years back - I didn't feel any need to repeatedly describe it to children, or even adults.
Its been suggested he was describing it to build relationships with the class, I wouldn't want my DCs to have such a relationship with any teacher - imo, that is outside of the normal range of behaviour for an adult with a duty of care for 18 and understanding.

[Naughty1205]

Yanbu OP, I really feel for your daughter. Even as an adult I would have an issue with this if I heard it in a lecture or lesson. What was his point he was trying to make. Hope your dd is OK this evening.

[Naughty1205]

something different has said what I wanted to say much more eloquently.

[Naughty1205]

something different has said what I wanted to say much more eloquently.

[Naughty1205]

something different has said what I wanted to say much more eloquently.

[Booboostwo]

I have had to do similar. A car hit and run a tiny kitten (in a country with a lot of strays). The kitten was mortally injured (I won't give details, it was horrific) but still alive. There was no way it could have made it to a vets so I euthanized it (again I won't give details, I was sobbing as I was doing it). I have never discussed the experience with anyone other than DH who was present, it was awful.

Coincidentally I am a moral philosopher and frequently teach euthanasia, animal rights, moral dilemmas and similar topics. It would never cross my mind to present a personal experience and if this kind of example was necessary it would always be presented in a relevant context so that students would know what was coming up and would be prepared for the emotional impact of these kinds of awful choices.

Mentioning this story by and by as a personal anecdote to be chatted about with students is deeply inappropriate. I can't imagine anyone who would not be upset hearing about it, and any student laughing about it must have been disassociating from the awfulness of it.

[Naughty1205]

Not sure why that post tripled. Apologies. And do we really need to know the detail of how thin a cats skull is?

[notangelinajolie]

I had to do this to a bird the cat brought home. It wasn't nice but I had to do it. It clearly wasn't going to survive.

Please don't go sending emails and letters. Your daughter is 18 and is learning in an adult environment. The teacher is teaching to an adult classroom with adult subject matter. There are some quite gruesome books in English Lit and open discussions of sensitve subjects may happen again. This may well have been relevant to the lesson. Are you really sure English Literature is the right subject for your daughter?

[Naughty1205]

pengggwn some of us are more sensitive than others, some suffer from anxiety and depression, teachers or anyone in the same capacity should acknowledge this and be careful how they word things.

[Mittens1969]

I actually don’t get what would be the point of telling that story? It would likely upset some of his students and for what purpose? When I was that age, I lost 2 cats on the road outside our house within 2 months of each other. It would have really upset me to hear him say that.

[MaisyPops]

Its been suggested he was describing it to build relationships with the class, I wouldn't want my DCs to have such a relationship with any teacher - imo, that is outside of the normal range of behaviour for an adult with a duty of care for 18 and understanding
I just knew someone would go down that route.
He was chatting to the class. Sometimes we do that. If telling odd stories is breaking some kind of duty if care then you may as well fire half my school. I mean, we're a great school, over subscribes and the kids get excellent results and we manage it without totally killing staff and students. Part of that IS the relationships between staff and students. Sometimes telling odd stories or momenta where you talk about something you saw actually make a big differenve to the climate and it also breaks things up for the students.

We ended up on a tangent in one of my gcse lessons from the text and I told them a tale from when I went travelling that was quite upsetting. It wasn't specifically exam material but you know what, it was a couple of mins and they were interested and (like a lot of tangents) we end up back at the text.
If someone had emailed me saying 'Mrs Maisy. I don't like the story you told and I think you are building unprofessional relationships' I'd roll my eyes and give SLT the heads up that I'm going to give the parent a call but they're probably the type who'll want to 'speak to someone senior'.