AIBU to message the teacher re Christmas play cancellation

[Rascalsandradishes]

DS(10) in y6 came home very upset today saying that class performance has been cancelled. It is tomorrow morning.

Teacher messaged in the class app approximately half an hour after school ended to say the play hasn't really been cancelled but wanted to use this as a stimulus for them to write a persuasive letter to get the head to change his mind. Teacher requested parents play along and help them form some arguments.

DS was really quite upset that his last show of primary school was 'cancelled'.

I couldn't play along, it just felt cruel and I don't lie to my DC. I had to tell him it wasn't real and that this was the base of a homework task.

AIBU to message the class teacher to say I've not played along and tell her how upset DS was? I can't imagine being the only parent feeling this way.

Is a class app like a one way messaging app, so you can't reply? Like a group email?

*Way back in 1990, when I was 13, the English department at my school decided to gather us all in the classroom and spin a lengthy horrifying story that the tap water in school had been contaminated and we were going to have to quarantine for weeks at school.

It was so believable and many of us were crying, as we'd been told that our parents would only be able to see us through the fence and would have to bring us our belongings from home. The details had all been thought out and I remember being petrified. I have no idea who thought this up, and why nobody else told them that it was a FUCKING TERRIBLE IDEA.

Oh, and the whole point was so we could write a diary about how we would feel in this situation.*

Oh my god. I'm absolutely horrified. I'm an English teacher and I can't imagine doing this!

I'd be keeping my child at home, as they're a bit off colour and they think the play is cancelled anyway. I'd be telling the teacher this, and ask them to persuade me otherwise.

This is so bang out of order of the teacher!

I think some of the "set ups" teachers do are great - my DS had a tent on his school field and the class had to figure out who was sleeping in it. But pretending something they've worked hard for is cancelled? Not on.

You can't seriously believe your justifications of this stupid idea. You are the only person justifying it on the whole thread, because you're looking at this incorrectly.

People who lie to their children in ways that are highly likely to upset them are bad people - but that is not relevant, because this was not a parent, it was a teacher.

This was my first thought too, they have been through so many cancelled events for real, why bring that all up?

It would have been very possible to do the exercise as a hypothetical, get them to remember how they felt when things got cancelled and use that to spark their letter writing.

I’m not sure this really happened.

It’s physically impossible to have the head read the letters before the performance tomorrow morning

The Head doesn't have to read the letters. The play hasn't actually been cancelled. The kids have a writing exercise, but the head doesn't really need to be persuaded!

Completely out of order, I’d be complaining to the HT. How on earth is a child supposed to trust their teacher after that stunt?!

These type of things stick in your mind for all the wrong reasons. It's upsetting and now will forever tarnish the children's memories of the last Christmas of primary school.

Slightly different but a similar trick was played on me when I was a dental student. Tutor told me I had a complaint from a patient. Even showed me the letter. I was so upset and had several sleepless nights worrying about it. Turned out he had faked the letter all along, written it himself, just to see how I would handle the situation. Cruel

I'd message back that I had told my disappointed child it was a (trick) mistake and he would not be doing the homework.

That is so silly! and cruel I wouldn’t go along with that at all.

Yes, this- Primary teachers are encouraged to use all sorts of silly gimmicks in writing. This has clearly gone too far, but this will be why she has done it.

I wouldn't fly off the handle but make it clear your child is upset and you won't be lying to them!

I'd be writing a letter to ask if the teacher thinks he's in the right job. What an absolute idiot.

My sons teacher staged a break in at the school so I think it’s a thing they do ….

Before you go in all guns blazing complaining, just bear in mind the teacher (whether their idea or not) hasn't set this task with the intention of upsetting your DC, or the other children they teach.

Whoever's idea it was, it was misjudged and the teacher will likely be mortified to know the whole class were upset and anxious, plus parents cross at them.

Totally acceptable to tell the teacher it was a bad assignment and you weren't comfortable lying but be sensitive how you go about it. I'm sure we've all made poor judgements at times and didn't need a group of adults (parents) then hammering that point on to us by email/telephone/via our boss.

Indeed

If it’s all true & I suspect it is as otherwise it would be a very odd thing for a child to come out with, I would absolutely tell me child the truth and email the teacher and copy in the head. What a heartless thing to do!

Yes because 10 and 11 year olds have no sense of time at all - they'll all believe that logistically they can arrive at school, all 30 of them hand in their letters at 9.00, that the head can read them all, then contact all the parents to say it isn't cancelled, wait for the parents to travel back in. All before 9.30. They're year 6 - they're not imbeciles.

What a bizarre sounding teacher

If your judgement is that poor that you think outright lying to your class, causing disappointment and broken trust at the very least, is a appropriate thing to do then I question whether you have the common sense to actually be a teacher.

Yes, the teacher has badly misjudged this, but

I'd have the head on the phone this evening or the morning at the very latest

Who the fuck do you think you are, love?

Yes, I wondered, but if it has the teacher is a muppet.

Hmmm. Got any children with ASD in the class? You know, the children who absolutely do not enjoy sudden changes or being pissed around for shits and giggles?

From the point of view of working in schools, I am pretty certain that the scale of the responses will be on a par with thirty Chernobyls.

Useful learning experience for the teacher, though. In Grovelling Writing. In handling upset children because of her lack or foresight and appreciation of the pressures that families are under and children that are experiencing loss and disappointment, unreasonable behaviour - and in what the consequences are of messing with kids' minds.

Of course, perhaps the children could, via the Whatsapp, try some persuasive writing of their own - writing to head and asking them to make sure that their teacher doesn't try anything so cruel again.

1. If I was a parent, I would not play along on this lie, not for one second. Lying is wrong and I would be teaching my kids that. This is totally undermining that teaching. There is far too much lying going on these days, and it's time everyone stopped doing it or accepting it. I'd also make a formal complaint to the school- directly to the headteacher.

2. As an ex-teacher I am totally disgusted by the teacher's actions, which I regard as unprofessional in the extreme- firstly, lying. Secondly, trying to get parents to join in the lying to their own kids. Thirdly, the example that the teacher is setting to the children that lying is acceptable. And finally but not least, the sheer cruelty of it.

I can hardly find words bad enough for my opnion of that teacher. Certainly none of the words I think suitable would be repeatable in front of children......

I think- no, I know- that I am someone who actually taught in schools. And I think a formal complaint to the head is most definitely indicated.