On the subject of.......... (sorry jess. you'll have to read it [smile)

The boy was 14, terminal illness and death are realities and I can't see that the exercise was in itself harmful or shocking. What I am going to do in the holidays and what I want to be when I grow up (don't all 14-year-olds think that they are already grown up?) are topics that surely wouldn't stretch a student's abilities and imagination to anything like the same extent.

What a sad, worrying story. That was an insensitive choice of topic anyway! Teachers need always to think what might be going on in a child's life when setting work on emotions. And even then you can get it wrong, even "What I did in my holidays". I am reminded of this poem:

"Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what they've done at home, if they have not -
you make them write about the holiday.
One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what?

That's not a sentence. Never mind the bell.
We stay behind until the work is done.
You count their words (you who can count and spell);
all the assignments are complete bar one

and though this boy seems bright, that one is his.
He says he's finished, doesn't want to add
anything, hands it in just as it is.
No change. My Dad did. What? What did his Dad?

You find the 'E' you gave him as you sort
through reams of what this girl did, what that lad did,
and read the line again, just one 'e' short:
This holiday was horrible. My Dad did."

Sophie Hannah

Appalling

I think the issue is more to do with taking the work home than writing it in the first place. It's quite an interesting exercise in using the imagination, exploring your own feelings and expressing them. If it had stayed in an exercise book (do they have these anymore?) at school, it would have been fine. Presenting it as if it were a real letter is what caused the distress. The poor mother must have been beside herself. The teacher was thoughtless as he/she should have guessed that at least one pupil would fail to explain what the letter actually was. (There's always one!)

I was shocked and saddened when I read it. "Empathy" is one thing, but this seemed totally insensitive and heavy handed, not to say "sick". With so many juvenile suicides I can only imagine the horror any parent or grandparent would feel reading it.Ghastly.

This is terrible, what a shock for the mother.
When I was at school, this time of year we would have been writing about, 'what I am going to do on my summer holidays' and then at the start of the new term.... 'what I did on my summer holidays'. Or as soop said what about 'when I grow up'

what has come over schools these days!

Horrified! What on earth is going on? Whatever happened to essays such as 'When I grow up?'

Sorry! Forgot link! it's here

I don't know anything about this. What exactly is a "last farewell" letter? Leaving home? Dropping dead?