to be upset by spider-killing teacher?!

[Glossymare]

Ds, age 8, tells me on our way home from school ‘my teachers a bit cruel. Today there was a spider on someone’s desk so she squashed it with her ruler. It was bleeding.’ I told him ‘that was cruel. She should have put it outside safely. How sad’.
Now, I don’t like spiders but I always get my husband or eldest son to take them outside because I’m too fucking scared too
But, this has really made me sad. What a shit example to set to children. AIBU?! I am premenstrual, so possibly a bit over emotional!

I can only deal with small to medium spiders with the glass/card method. The big buggers are dealt with by my DH who just picks them up and puts them outside. However, when teaching Y2 last year, I had to deal with a massive bugger which was crawling across the desk of several screaming children. I was pretty much bricking it. Now I'm in Y4, I have given the role of 'pest controller' to one of the kids who is afraid of nothing.

I don't like spiders, but I've never been able to bring myself to kill one! Nonetheless, I don't think is something worth getting worked up about. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, so ultimately I'm contributing to much worse animal cruelty than squashing a spider. I'm in no position to talk.

Thing is though we're quite aware that if you take a house spider outside they're probably going to die unless they manage to get back in (I think?). So is there that much difference between people who kill them there and then and people who put them in a hostile environment.
Bit like meat eaters who judge people for killing their own animals really. The 'ethical element' just boils down to avoiding taking on direct responsibility for the killing. Of course you could argue that not wanting to watch is an ethical act in itself.

I take spiders outside if they're big so not claiming any high ground here, it's just for my own comfort but of course in the moment you don't see it that way.

I would not kill a spider - but who knows perhaps the teacher has had a bad experience and been bitten by a spider.

When I was on a college course I got told off for being "cruel" when I killed a queen wasp on my desk - I am allergic to wasps and my epipen was in the car 500m away so I decided it was me or her!

I don't believe this is true costory I've never seen blood from akilled spider. I'd have put it out as I'm not scared of them but lots of people are.

@Glossymare this is the world we live in and as much as I would like my child to be in a death free zone society just hasn't got that far yet

YABU. Kill the fuckers. Kill them all. Fire and hammers.

Hadn’t realised putting them outside was basically killing them. Also, I hear what you’re saying re being hypocritical and eating meat, which we do.

Well I think people would argue it's not hypocrisy because the crucial distinction is that the thing we prize is that we're not directly involved in killing, rather than that we are not involved at all - it's fine if we share the responsibility so that the blame doesn't get attributed to one person/cause but more a chain of events. Then you can argue that if X (in this case, the fatal drop in body temperature caused by the outside) had not done this, your involvement in the animal's death would have been nil anyway. Because simply putting an animal outside in itself is not harmful, and that's all you did (just (to take a really morbid turn) like signing a death warrant in itself requires someone else to actually carry out the execution).

I don't know if all house spiders die if they're put outside, btw, didn't mean to make anyone feel bad.

Sorry, meant not hypocrisy if the distinction is meat eaters/vegetarians, not urban meat eaters and say, farmers!

Or the other way round bowing out disgracefully now

YABU. Teacher deserves a good glass of wine for disposing of it. 1 less out there!

I can't stand seeing people squash spiders for no reason, just leave them alone or put them outside. They have just as much right to be here as the "cute and fluffy" animals that most people like.

I’ve never seen a spider bleed. Do they bleed, then? Not doubting your son’s word, OP , just curious.

"Wicked bitch"

No idea if they bleed, I’d imagine if was just icky fluid that came out, if anything!

Maybe it wasn't a spider. Could have been a big fly, or even a mosquito. Which would explain the bizarre mention of blood.

Yanbu. I've had to suck it up and humanely deal with spiders in classrooms many times for the sake of showing children that we don't kill wildlife just because it's there. I think I'd be quite shocked if someone at my school did what your ds's teacher did.

Poor spider. I ve been the spider girl since I was a kid. Picking them up and taking them out for my mum to start with.
Why didn't she ask one of the kids to help?
No need to kill it

Better to kill the spider by chucking it out a window into the freezing cold, then head downstairs for some delicious dead mammal.

What’s the point in putting it outside? House spiders will die a slow death outdoors anyway.

I think lots of people don’t see anything wrong with killing spiders to be honest. Your child’s school has employed one

Nasty bitch.

That's a shit example to set young children.

Taking any life needlessly is a bad thing to do, and for an adult to model that behaviour in front of children is vile.

I don't think that people killing animals for meat amounts to the same as gratuitous killing. If the spider loses no risk (and in most circumstances they don't) ending its life because you dislike it is just horrible. She isn't someone I would want teaching my children.

I chucked a huge one out the window the other week. I don’t mind small /medium ones but this was too much

I did think afterwards that it would probably have been kinder to have squished it rather than it fall to its death 😳

Fuck spiders, I say, fuck them all.

They can do their good world citizen act away from me or they can come near me and die.

I'm firmly on the teachers team here. What teacher wants to piss about with glass and card bollocks when half the class are squealing and running away and the other half are trying to poke it.