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.

Nah, I just don't eat cats, love.

Weebo

Yes that's really right the young person has autism. However, it would be wrong to define them by this diagnosis.

Like most teachers I teach many pupils with a wide range of emotional needs. We are preparing students for the world. They are introduced to difficult topics and we discuss how they can process them. When teachers 'chat' to students they are being introduced to conversations they might have in the wider world.

Autistic students often really value the sense that you are treating them 'normally'.

No, something, I would say that listening to the account of a Holocaust survivor is infinitely and should be infinitely more harrowing that listening to the fact that someone put a cat out of its misery. To suggest otherwise is beyond offensive.

somethingDifferent38

It is not the same thing.

One is an animal and the other is a discussion of human suffering.

But we cannot avoid subjects that might be upsetting. That is also a misunderstanding of mental health issues.

If it is the case that the dd is very upset because of a cat accidentally killed on the road but not by 26 people being killed in a Texas massacre then that is more evidence that the school cannot be expected to predict and avoid all subjects that might potentially upset the DD.

Speaking as someone who is severely autistic, who recently completed sixth form.... I had a lot of allowances made for me but it still requires a level of emotional resilience and self-advocacy. Censorship to protect people's feelings is already becoming an issue in universities, although im not against trigger warnings in all cases.
Trust me im very pro-autism, pro-reasonable-adjustments, but i think it would be unfair to demand that a teacher censor a lesson which is not an issue for the age group concerned.
I'm sorry your daughter had a hard day it was mean of her classmate to joke about it being her cat, although im sure they meant no malice

Like most teachers I teach many pupils with a wide range of emotional needs. We are preparing students for the world. They are introduced to difficult topics and we discuss how they can process them. When teachers 'chat' to students they are being introduced to conversations they might have in the wider world
I agree. One of the students I taught thr Holocaust lesson to had a 1-1 teaching assitant for quite strong additional needs (could have had a special school placement but home wanted them to come to us). Their engagement surpassed all expectations. Their TA was stunned with their empathy after looking at the material. I could have said 'oh I have Daniel in that class so we best not look at it' but that wpuld be reducing his world because he has a diagnosed SEN.

I agree no. But there's enough people on here who have taken a couple of bits if informatiom from a very sensitive student's account and come up with all sorts of reasons why he must be a terrible teacher etc.

maisy, it wasn't a text.

The OP is quite clear this was an anecdote told by the teacher. That is why it is inappropriate.

I'm gobsmacked anyone thinks a teacher discussing this sort of thing is appropriate for pupils without SEN, too. It's not. A little professionalism is not so difficult to manage!

Slight derail - I am a vet - to say that any vet will give emergency care for free if there’s no owner - or should do - it’s part of our professional code to treat any animal in an emergency. And it is very normal for kind people to bring dead cats in. We scan for chips and write a description of the cat down, in case an owner phones up asking after it, and keep the body for a few days in case the owner turns up, and if not, dispose of it, as an act of public service, without charging anyone. I imagine the vast majority of vets would do the same.

japanesegarden i didn't know that - i was wondering about who pays etc. Thank youx

That's good to know Japanese but i have to say its totally counter to my experience.

I have two autistic children so I would be the last person to suggest othering here.

However, I wouldn't view it as defining someone by their diagnosis to keep the 'cat head bashing' conversations to himself.

I have never had a casual conversation like that with anyone in my life and would find it really odd if someone kept bringing it up.

Also nostaples, autism is not a mental health issue
it's a neurodevelopmental disorder.

What would have been very wrong is if MaisyPops had said "oh I can't teach X that because he has X". That would have denied that child the opportunity to learn. She would have restricted the child's opportunities to learn and experience a range of emotions.

MaisyPops took the risk and greatly enhanced that child's education. Many posters on this thread would have denied that child that experience.

It depends how badly injured the cat was. I was on a bus behind loads of cars and a lorry that were all swerving painstakingly slowly round a rabbit in the road. The bus driver ran over it because it had the bulging eyes of myxomatosis. Quite a few of the passengers were horrified, I was one of the few who agreed with her. I couldn't have done it, she was braver than me.

Thanks Weebo, I am well aware of what autism is. The OP says her DD suffered from anxiety and depression, which is what I was referring to by MH issues.

@MaisyPops

Cover up the evidence, as he realises he has hit his neighbours cat and people tend to hide things they irrationally think will be tied to them. ~Killing something with a tennis racket is an anaemic response. It would take a good few blows, a right good battering, it would be extra trauma and not a quick death. If I saw an animal in agony and all I had was a tennis racket, I wouldn't go for it. I certainly wouldn't be telling my class about it. If I had bothered to stop my car after seeing someone else kill a cat, I'm not going to reign about 10 tennis racket blows to the head to finish it off FFS.

Killed a lot of things with a tennis racket have you stars? Because your whole post sounds like unfounded speculation.

Hmmm....how does she cope with watching the news??

Do you know if any other parents felt the need to email the teacher and suggest how he does job? Or was it just you OP?

Blimey! All secondary school kids, from aged 11, have to learn about cruel, horrific and harrowing topics. There is nothing lovely about the deaths of people living in Tudor times or the harrowing topic of 'The Holocaust'. All my teens have covered grisly topics through history lessons (including visiting the Tower of London to see how Anne Boleyn (plus others) were disposed of. They also had a compulsory school trip to Auschwitz. They have also dissected sheep's eyes, mice and rats - compulsory for biology GCSE.

Life is a learning curve that kids need to be prepared for. We cannot bring them up thinking life is solely all hearts and flowers - Its not!

Are you seriously suggesting a class of adults have to be sheltered from the realities of life because your dd cant cope with the truth?

LRD
I have said multiple times on this thread that I wouldn't have chosen that anecdote. However, me deciding that I wouldn't use that anecdote doesn't make him unorofessoinal or make any of the ridiculous assertions about this mans character (including silly stories about how he must have he cat and then tried to hide the evidence) the grounds of a sensitive student didn't like a story and then complained to their mum.

I've told students about my trips to auschwitz, the battle fields and war memorials and some of the upsetting things that were there. I've drawn on anecdotes from when I've been travelling and told adapted (& anonymised) tales of people I have known as illustrations.

We've had holocaust survivors visit school and speak to students about it. It's harrowing. But that is the reality of the world and part of secondary education (and especially by 6th form!) is to learn how to approach things.

I know some colleagues would never use personal anecdotes at all. I do, but don't have the banter that some of my 'non-anecdote' colleagues have. It doesn't make either of us unprofessional for having different preferences.

That's my point. Personal preference does not make something unprofessional.
Personally, I can think of one colleague who is embarrassingly down with the kids. I think it is cringey. But you know what, they're a bloody good teacher. They just have a different line to me on that side of things.

when it still sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy story.

Moussemoose That was my point.
Yes, in the OP's situation it was an anecdote but the study of a text, but the way some people on this thread carry on it's almost like 'the teacher should know the student has some issues and not cover potentially sensitive topics' rather than 'the student is very sensitive and struggles to deal with issues so maybe the student needs pastoral support and coping strategies rather than close down a classroom around them'.

Does anyone seriously consider describing beating a cat to death with tennis racket one of the 'realities of life'?

I find that very strange, personally.

City life, being too removed from reality perhaps. It was in agonising pain and dying. If you were the cat, what would you want? A jolty agonising trip to somewhere else to be pts, or an end there and then?

I'm not talking about what I would do - I'm talking about how I would recount it to a room full of people.

A simple 'I had to put it out of its misery' would surely suffice if I really felt the need to share the story.

I certainly wouldn't continue to bring it up.