The brainlessness of an English Tutor. Fuming

[crazymomma93]

Long time lurker, please bear with me.
My DD12 has been having some issues with her reading book. It has been making her feel uncomfortable, from the Genre and style of writing. So I have looked into it, got a jist of the book, she has pointed out some bits that made her uneasy and I looked up the age rating which was 14+. Now typically if you knew me, you would know I am not "that Mom" but I emailed her Form Tutor to ask if there was an alternative. Tutor emailed back after talking to English dept and DD dosn't need to read the book any longer, she can bring in her own. No problem. My DD has just told me she spoke with her own English Tutor, the day before I sent the email to tell her Form Tutor. After listening to DD, English Tutor responds "it's just words"
ITS JUST WORDS? Sorry is that not pretty much the Tutors whole career, teaching English?
I need calming because I am close to emailing said teacher calling her a c**t, because, you know "it's just words". See how her feelings are when she reads something that makes her uncomfortable.
My DD turned to her to ask because the book was making her uneasy and that is the response. What about children who get verbally bullied? Where is this Womans morals. AIBU?

To be honest I think we should always encourage young girls to speak up when they feel uncomfortable and I think fair play to the op for supporting her daughter.

Oh my god, some people really need to learn better comprehension skills.

Some books are meant to make us uncomfortable in order to get across uncomfortable truths. Is it one of those? If so, it’s done its job so to speak and that in itself would make it ‘successful’ in literary terms. I wouldn’t act like a nut job with the school if this is the case.

defined as manipulating someone into questioning their own perception of reality.

Gaslighting does not have to be in the realms of abuse such as coercive control. Telling someone that they’re wrong would fall under gaslighting depending on the context. To me, a teacher - an adult in a position of authority over a 12yr old - saying "they’re only words" is trying at the very least to have the student question her response to the book. Worse, attempting to shame the child about her response.

In any event, let’s remove the word ‘gaslighting’ from my comment and consider the bigger picture.

There was an opportunity for the teacher to have a conversation about the girl’s feelings and thoughts about the book, but she didn’t. Just shut the child down and said ‘they’re just words’. It seems as though you might feel there’s nothing wrong with that response. I do. So we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Btw, loved your initial response to see if she agrees those were ‘just words’.

There is a huge difference between a work of fiction and a personal attack. One is indeed "just words" and the other is nasty.

I have already said this two times, but I am happy to repeat - you really cannot compare Dickens or Emile Zola or Austen and any "difficult" parts in those books with the sort of utter grim gobshite which is being forced on or marketed at children today.

I wouldn't have read those books which you mention to my 8 year old. By the time I read them I was old enough to not find them traumatising and we read them as a class (not on our own) and had teachers who talked through issues, including any dark themes. And remember that all those books you mention are fantastic literature and have many, many positive and brilliant aspects to them - the book being referred to on this thread is not. And the book referred to here is not being discussed in class by the teacher with everyone. None of this is what should be happening has been described the OP. You say "Strong dark emotions through literature is beneficial" - well, in fact they are fine at the age appropriate time and where children are reading around a responsible adult who talks things through and where the literature is itself of value. All of which, it seems, is a rarity at the moment.

What comes across loud and clear on this thread is that some of the teachers do not understand what is and is not age appropriate and are frankly sounding as though they are not responsible adults either.

This is how we can make things better:

The law should be changed to ensure that teachers (and social workers and anyone else involved in making decisions relating to children) get training on child development research.

The law should also be changed to ensure that there are approved books which are of literary value and that strict age limits put on books which need to be strictly adhered to by teachers and input on this should come both from independent academics with expertise around literature and with professionals with expertise around child development and decisions to be made jointly.

Yes, not just age appropriate but as a bare minimum I would expect English teachers to be providing books that actually have some literary merit not shite churned out by celebrities.

Just to follow on from what I said above, to the english teachers here saying "English teacher here - words are just words - 12 year olds can read anything" - take for example literature produced by paedophiles to try to circumvent laws around sharing material - explicit details of paedophilia - the sort of thing which would make any normal person feel physically sick - you would be fine with that being read by 12 year olds, teens? This is just one example of what is out there. I hope sincerely you do not think it is okay for teens/tweens. If you do, in all honesty you should not be teaching.

There were lighthearted comments upthread about reading about explicit sex as a teen - I can pretty much guarantee that that part of the childhood was not "beneficial" - it was coped with, perhaps, and reframed in our minds as we matured as not ideal, but not "beneficial".

For goodness sake. The OP never intended to say those words. She cleverly used the example to illustrate how words are never ’just words’.

But I’d also argue that words in a piece of fiction are/can also be nasty. Wouldn’t you agree that Mein Kampf was more than just words?

It’s fair enough to question whether the content of a book is suitable for a pupil but you complained and they said she doesn’t have to read it. Your further complaint is that a teacher used the phrase ‘just words’. I presume the teacher was trying to help your dc not be upset. So what next? You email the class teacher making them feel shit. Class teacher has to lose PPA time to reply to your complaint. You have gained nothing further from your complaint and class teacher has had their time wasted. This is a clear example of the stuff teachers have to deal with. A secondary teacher will see hundreds of pupils a week. Imagine if just one tenth of the parents sent in silly complaints like this.

OP’s child is not 8 either. She is secondary school age.

If you had genuinely read the classics, you would know that the darkest parts of those can be absolutely terrifying. Equally, if you’d read any of the “utter grim gobshite” as you call it that you are railing against, you’d see that you are wrong. Modern books have merit in their own way. When Shakespeare was written, He wasn’t “the Great Bard”, he was churning out contemporary entertainment for the masses. His work was the Eastenders of its day. Look at the regard it’s held in now.

As to age appropriateness, the particular book OP is talking about is recommended as 14+ on Amazon, 13+ by the publishers and OP’s DD is 12. That’s hardly a wild developmental leap that would be considered age inappropriate. The teacher isn’t peddling American Psycho to preschoolers. Yes, literature should be age appropriate but a book for mid-teens being read by a 12 year old is perfectly acceptable.

Lastly, I would say that advocating for enforced censorship in education would be both incredibly stupid and damaging to children and young people. Literature is important. A variety of literature is important. Who gets to decide? People like you who clearly haven’t even read Dickens and just think it’s a grand name to throw about in a debate?

What you actually are is someone throwing a hissy fit over books they’ve never even read, which is just a bit sad really. If you’d like to actually learn, and maybe explore some of the modern YA literature available and actually read the classics, I’d be happy to make some recommendations.

Yes let's ignore your complete trivialisation of gaslighting, which is not just "You're wrong and here's why you could think about it differently" but a sustain abuse technique to make the victim feel lost and confused and like they are losing their grip on reality...

We don't KNOW the teacher wasn't talking to the girl about her feelings towards the book and used the words or similar sentiment to "their only words" as part of a bigger discussion but those were the only ones DD has picked up on.

You haven’t READ the book. So you aren’t remotely qualified to judge if it’s shite or not.

Shock horror, famous people who are good at one thing are perfectly capable of being good at another. Tom Fletcher - a man who writes chart topping songs, might well be excellent at writing books. Richard Osman started out writing quiz questions. This doesn’t mean he isn’t also capable of writing excellent books.

As he’s been lauded on here by several of your ilk, you may be interested to know that before Charles Dickens wrote most of his novels, he had started out briefly as an actor, and was already famous as a journalist. Shakespeare was already famous as an actor when he first published . Is their work “celebrity shite”….?

How the phrase gaslighting is used is something you clearly feel strongly about. I’m sorry if you’ve been on the receiving end of that.

You're right that we don’t know the entire conversation or full context. We can only do what any of us are doing in any post on MN. Reply to the OP as it is written. Most of the replies say nothing about not knowing the bigger conversation. Quite a few are personally nasty to / about the OP.

in the context of what information we have, I don’t agree with that teacher’s response. Now I’m off to work and won’t come back to this thread. I found many of the responses deeply unpleasant for a multitude of reasons.

I've read the children's books by those two, they are dire and we donated them
I've read Richard Osman's book and wouldn't expect that to be produced in an English literature class either, it's not got any great merit and I am sure would not have been published if he wasn't a "name"

The law should also be changed to ensure that there are approved books which are of literary value and that strict age limits put on books which need to be strictly adhered to by teachers and input on this should come both from independent academics with expertise around literature and with professionals with expertise around child development and decisions to be made jointly.

Oof the snobbery about "literary value". Books that are now considered classics weren't written as classics. Dickens published his stories originally as serials, essentially a print version of a weekly TV drama. Most "classics" were panned by at least one critic in their day. As said above, Shakespeare was peddling mass entertainment and would probably have laughed if he knew the regard his work would later be held in.

I think you'd also find that decisions would never be made "jointly" by academics in 2 such different fields because they'd have very different ideas about suitability. Even within the same field ideas will vary.

And all of this starts to get worryingly close to disturbing level of censorship.

More that a phrase regarding a terrible form of abuse is used correctly. Rather than trivialised...

We can read the OP as written and then advise from that to say she needs to know more about the conversation, as I have said.

Your replies have been deeply unpleasant in your trivialisation of gaslighting

You’ve read their children’s books, or you have specifically read THIS particular YA novel….? I would venture to ask - if it was that dire, why you say “books”. Clearly not dire enough to stop you reading more than one…..

As to your comments on Richard Osman - I think the other thing that’s the issue here is people are conflating “I don’t like it” with “this book is badly written”. Personally, I hated Wolf Hall. I found it dull and ponderous and I abandoned a 3rd of the way through. Does that mean I think Hilary Mantell is a bad writer or the book is badly written? No. It just wasn’t for me. You may not care for Richard Osman’s books, but they have rounded characters, a strong structure and a well developed plot. They are technically well written books and that isn’t in any way diminished by him being a celebrity.

Plenty of books out there are utterly dreadful, and plenty of celebrities do have vanity published drivel, but it is neither true nor fair to say that nobody who initially became known for something else can write good books.

This is what I was going to say, loads of people are saying a pp's post was too graphic and reported it, but surely it was 'just words'.... I've got an example of my son reading something I thought was too graphic but will post separately in case deleted. And loads of my kids books have age ratings on the back, I can see them with my eyes.

So my son read 1984 at the beginning of secondary school when he still seemed a 'young' type, and started dropping the word 'rape' into random sentences (because of the book) as if it was a normal thing to say. Had a chat with him but it was horrible and kind of a nasty way to bridge that age of growing up a bit. Still makes me sad.

Films are just films but we don't we don't let 11 year olds watch 18 films for a reason

You sound absolutely insane and you need to get a grip. You absolutely ARE 'that mom' and if you keep acting like this your daughter is going to be 'that kid' too. Christ alive. Calm the fuck down.

12 year olds have smart phones, i would have thought the sensitivity ship had sailed a long time ago

Poor poor kids. Their minds are being destroyed.

If there is damage done by words to anyone, why do adults need trigger warnings on Literature and course content in universities ?