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.

weebo
What a lot of us are saying I should that what we have is a situation where a highly sensitive adult us reported a story where (even by the OP's admission) someone saw a cat who had been hit by a car and decided to put it out its misery.

That in itself is a perfectly reasonable anecdote to share and without any of us being there we don't know how it was told. We do know that the student was upset by this.

Over the course of this thread people have started going down e route of 'someone has issues so certain topics shouldn't be discussed in front of them' & then it's turned into a teacher loves trying to be cool with students by discussing how he savagely attacked a cat and beat it to death.

Don't get me wrong, if he spent half an hour describing every detail of it then I'd say it wasn't right. But I also know how overly sensitive students have a very different impressoin of events to how they actually unfolded (and have had my fair share of calls and emails for various issues stemming from 'I don think it's right DC heard/saw/read...')
Based on the OP's information she is more than reasonable to seek additional pastoral support for her DD. She would be unreasonable to complain about thenteacher or tell them what to discuss.

I absolutely agree with that Dixie.

She is absolutely not being unreasonable to contact the teacher and advise he take her daughters circumstances into account in the future before he decides to share any more unnecessary stories like this.

If her daughter's circumstances as such that staff need to avoid discussing anything potentially sensitive then the daughter should not be studying English in my opinion.

Oh sorry class, yes the set texts do deal with these issues and there are related things that have been in the press linked to the theme, and I saw something on Netflix that reminded me of it but nah I'll not have a discussion that will actually help the discussion because we have a student in the class who can't deal with difficult issues and now expects the class to be censored to fit around that. Stuff wider exploration of issues that might be interesting.

Last year a load of my y11s had read/watched 13 Reasons Why and thought it was similar to An Inspector Calls. I hadn't read or seen it and we must have spent 20 mins discussing it. It was a great discussion. If someone wanted to ring me and tell me I shouldn't have done that because their child is a bit sensitive then I'd have politely pointed out that those issues are in the course and if they have an issue they need to speak to senior leadership.

dixie
Most parents of children with ASD have been great in my experience. Same where there's been issues in the texts that link to children's home lives.

I just get irritated that there's a small group who think that the wider discussion of the class should be moderated and sanitised because someone doesn't like it and their mum will send an email complaining.

DS1 being taught about the crucifixion in a Roman Catholic school was LOTS of fun for us, Dixie. They don't tend to hold back. :o

But as you say, we were prepared so it worked out fine.

"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."

Ahh so you are a teacher and good on you and your trips to Auschwitz and your secondary accounts of what happened there, you are an absolute martyr . It's part of the curriculum where I am from anyway. As a teacher I also assume you know what a conspiracy theory is? Apparently not, maybe curb the trips and get a bit more study in .

Maisy if I contacted you with concerns about my child's disability/additional needs and you minimised it into them being 'a bit sensitive' I would definitely speak to your senior leadership.

But thankfully my experience with teachers has been far more productive.

I think it’s fine. He put the cat out of pain when it was close to death. He was kind.

I’ve done the same when I ran over a rabbit. Stopped the car and put it out of its misery. A long death would have been awful for the creature.

It’s the sort of thing an 18 year old would normally be able to openly discuss. Obviously your DD is different. Maybe she should have left the session if it was too difficult - just to look after her own mental health? It’s fine to let the teacher know that your daughter can’t cope with such chatter. Does he know she has ASD? Does he fully understand the condition? It’s likely he needs a bit of help to grasp things and there’s no need to be angry

That is not the best thing for the animal the best thing to do if you hit a cat is to wrap it up tightly and immediately drive to the nearest vets. It if it at night then call the vets, nearly all will have a 24 hour on call service. It isn't up to you to decide that the animal needs killed, its up to us the professionals to assess its condition and then decide.

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

Errm, pure physics ??

Ahh so you are a teacher and good on you and your trips to Auschwitz and your secondary accounts of what happened there, you are an absolute martyr shock.
What the fuck?! Not sure how sharing accounts linked to what we study makes me a martyr. But ok. 😂
It's part of the curriculum where I am from anyway.
Schools can choose what they study.
As a teacher I also assume you know what a conspiracy theory is
Eh?
Apparently not, maybe curb the trips and get a bit more study in confused.
Ooh. You mean I have to teach kids and get them to study... that's where I've been going wrong in a very successful career. Damn. You got me.
GF nonteacher wants to tell me how to teach. Excellent.

You miss my point entirely (unsurprisingly).
Stories can be very helpful and interesting.

I feel strongly about this as we have had a couple of dead cats brought in that have been 'put out of their misery' by the person who ran over them by beating them, but actually all they've done is left them brain dead so we still have to euthanise. Another was brought in dead because the driver killed it with a shovel when in fact it was clear it only had a broken leg and could have stood a chance at recovery. An animal is now different to finding an injured human - you call the paramedics not treat them yourself!

No different*

Students need to discuss events, some which add twists and turns to shape our thinking

A bit like drop feeding in here - here's the tale - oh but here's some more info, hand on bit of back ground

What's moral and right in one situation maybe wrong in another - I imagine it's good debate material

There is a world of difference flowing a set reading list that op can prepare her dd for and discuss with her and regaling a class on how you first ran over a cat that could have belonged to a pupil then hit it over the head with a tennis racquet and threw it in the side of the road.

He could have said he had an accident and that the cat had died. He did not need to give details and then keep returning to the subject egged on by pupils who wanted more gory details.

Maisy if I contacted you with concerns about my child's disability/additional needs and you minimised it into them being 'a bit sensitive' I would definitely speak to your senior leadership.

I'm more than happy to have parents speak to me about concerns and look to work together to build a range of strategies to help the child learn.
I have given multiple examples on thos thread where I have done that.

I am not having parents call up complain because 'my child said' and then tell me I how to run my classroom/what to discuss because they don't like it.

There's a big difference.

2 real examples:

1. Colleague got a call about why teaching victorian literature is traumatic and distressing and the parenr demanded she changed the topic for the class
2. Parenr called me to fill me in on a harrowing experience in the background of a child's family which school were unaware of. We agreed some flexibility on behaviour and concentration as well as ways to support the child through a topix they had to cover for gcse.

Example 1 the parent ia being unreasonable and expecting the classroom to cater to her sensitivities.

Example 2 the parent is very reasonable & the child was well supported.

THAT is the difference.

What GCSE subject covers battering a cat to death with a tennis racket I wonder?

Science? PE?

You sound like a bit of a defensive nightmare tbh Maisy.

@MaisyPops You miss my point entirely (unsurprisingly).
Stories can be very helpful and interesting.

You are not articulating your point very well (again maybe you need some more experience and study) and still can't get the meaning of a conspiracy theory? Google it FGS, google Occam's razor, jesus I shouldn't have to be teaching a teacher.

"dead cats brought in that have been 'put out of their misery' by the person who ran over them by beating them, but actually all they've done is left them brain dead so we still have to euthanise."
I would let the actual vet in this discussion 'WetsTheVet' have the say in this discussion, because that post just ended it for me. A cat hit with a shovel that only had a broken leg.

Sorry I can't let it go, but how do kill an animal swiftly with a tennis racquet and then think it's a story ok to tell.

I think you’re being OTT emailing the teacher, and it’s not cruel.

My mum and dad, on their first date, were driving down the road and the car in front hit a cat. They got out and checked it and it was writhing in pain, clearly paralysed, and would not recover. My mum comforted the cat while directing my dad to drive over it again and put it out of its misery.

The owner had seen from his window, came over and burst into tears and thanked them for not leaving the cat in pain and doing what he wouldn’t have been able to.

I’d have thought battering a cat with a tennis racquet would be classed as animal cruelty by the police, however injured

How on earth is it animal cruelty when he was putting a badly injured dying animal out it's misery. A police matter? Don't be ridiculous

You sound like a bit of a defensive nightmare tbh Maisy
No. I also don't take crap from people who tell me how to do my job based on 'but my child says... / i don't think your lesson is appropriate' Unfortunately in the eyes of those people that probably is being a defensive nightmare because it means they can't stomp their feet and try to tell me how to run my classroom and they don't like that. That is why we have supportive senior leaders.

I just prefer to be a bit more balanced on these type of threads having seen multiple variations of similar situations play out. It's almost always more nuanced than people make out.

I am bored of saying that I wouldn't have used that anecdote.

However, and this is the point, what started as 'he told an upsettinf story about putting a cat who had been hit by a car out its misery' turnes into 'here's a horrible unprofessional teacher who is clearly proud of battering an animal to death' with some posters suggesting he hit the cat and finishes it off to hide the evidence.

In this situation we have the OP reporting what a very sensitive student has reported.

So it could be:

1. Teacher tells brief anecdote with not that much detail, mentions they put it out its misery and students raise it later so it comes back up but it plays on the mind of the DD
2. Teacher tells anecdote and does include a bit of detail and other students ask later on things lile 'but seriously sir. Were you not grossed out?!' And it was upsetting for the DD.
3. Teacher spends half a lesson going into how he battered a cat in gruesome detail to try and be cool for the student and then proceeded not to teach his subject in order to chat about the cat.

Now if the claim is 1 or 2 then the OP would be right to seek additional pastoral support to help her DD deal with topics that may come up.
If the claim is 3 then the OP needs to speak to the teacher and ask them yo account for the lesson. Either it was actually 1 or 2 but it feels awful for a sensitive DD or it was 3 and then the OP needs to speak to the HOD.