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

Spot on Jess!

jess to everything you say.

Jess (to the first bit)

Seeing as I got an honorary mention in the thread title (takes a bow emoticon) I 'suppose I'd better respond...
As an exercise I think it is fine. I don't think death should be a taboo subject in school. TV and film are awash with it after all.
Teachers are used to dealing with classes of kids with "issues" - they come up all the time. I was in a class that were doing a lesson on Sherlock Holmes. The 12 year olds, lower ability set, were mostly interested in his drug taking. "He was a junkie like my ex-dad!" one commented.
Problem seems to have been when the 14 year old showed it to his mum without saying "this is homework - I'm not really planning to die any time soon , good night, love you mum"
But 14 year old boys are not known for their emotional intelligence.
Many of them seem to think for instance that spitting is a good way to impress girls!
So have the parents in their considered wisdom contacted the press? Instead of expressing their concerns to the school. Give me a break!

Oh! [bites nails with indecision]

I'm not sure it's a good thing to put their minds on miserable things at that age. They can be very capable of getting depressed all on their own. (adolescence and all that)

absent - nuclear annihilation was a subject that ran through my youth. The image of the mushroom cloud haunted my imagination. My dad and many of my friends' dads worked in a vast explosives factory and every time we heard a 'bang' in the distance we would look out of the school windows in that direction. I imagine that miners' children suffered similar anxieties. So yes, adolescents can be haunted by the possibility of death, either their own or that of their loved ones.

Mmmm. Thinking again. You are persuasive, absent!

Why shouldn't a child (adolescent) face up to his or her own mortality Ariadne? Death is still the last great taboo in our society and we have an extraordinarily unhealthy attitude towards it. Incidentally, I seem to remember writing all sorts of perfectly frightful "poems" about death, disease and decay round about that age, so it's not as if adolescents don't think about these things. Oh and nuclear annihilation.

You could view it that way, of course, Ariadne.

Or that that particular child had not mastered certain skills?

I must agree with jeni though, that the handwriting and spelling were very poor for a child of 14, when you think that in a year or two he will be sitting his GCSEs or whatever exams will be in place then. I know that isn't the subject of this thread, but the letter itself just highlights how standards have fallen.

What a lovely little letter that boy wrote. I wonder if his mother was moved as well as upset.

Thanks for the poem ariadne which makes a very good point and should be compulsory reading for all teachers. 'What I did in the holidays' can feel threatening to some, who know only too well that while others jetted off to Disneyland, they had a very different experience.

That said, I do feel sorry for this teacher, who has been a bit insensitive (no doubt while trying to be interesting) and finds him/herself pilloried in the national press. Who'd be a teacher?

I have thought a bit more about it, and I still don't think it was an appropriate choice. To remove it a pace or two, as Flickety suggested, allows the imagination and empathy to kick in without a child having to face, up front, their own mortality.

So - I too agree with jingl

Glad you like the poem, jingl and Bags.

You have summed up my own feelings on the subject, FlicketyB. It makes me feel very uneasy that this happened at all, with or without the parents' knowledge or consent. The thought of death, or having a terminal illness, can be very distressing for some children.

I think this is an appalling thing to ask a child, or anyone else to do as a public exercise, which class work is, unless they have first been consulted and freely given consent to undertake the work. The fact that these issues are part of life is irrelevant. It is not appropriate to ask children to explore their own feelings in such a public manner. If other children see the work (and they will) it can be used to target children who show too much vulnerability in the letter or express 'unsuitable' feelings. Not every person (child or adult) wants to be so open with feelings and emotions, expecially in relation to their parents. Some children, like some adults are deeply private people.

When my daughter was 9 following road safety classes at school the class was asked to imagine and write about a road accident. My daughter refused to do the work. She found it too distressing. A few years later my sister was killed in a road accident and she dealt with both her own grief and that of her parents and grandparents with resolution and courage.The fact that she did not want explore the issue in creative work at school did not mean that she was not capable of exploring her feelings, or dealing with the reality when it happened. She is quite simply a person who likes to keep her emotions private.

if the teacher really wanted to explore this issue why not do it through a third party, a letter from a soldier serving in Afghanistan to his parents or somebody shipwrecked on a desert island without chance of rescue. I think the rteacher who set this work is lacking empathy themselves or has a worrying desire to delve too deeply into the psyche of their pupils.

absent I reckon so!

I've found some other poems by her. She's rather good.

I like this one

Just read this thread. I agree with absent's view, but pity the mother. That poem is heart-rending, ariadne, but there is something amazing about it too. So few words. So plain. But such a feeling of that dawning comprehension.

j04 Has hell frozen over?

Jing I'm terribly afraid I agree with you (what is the world coming to when this happens?)
It SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE HOME particularly looking like a letter rather than an exercise!
I thought the actual calligraphy was very poor for a child of this age also!

Oooh 'eck! I think I'm coming around to absent's view. He is 14. We live in a different age, I guess.

But it shouldn't have gone home!

I knew you'd get it! Am pondering the exercise, but am not sure; I take your point that these issues are part of life, and I am sure that the teacher wouldn't have set it "cold", but..will think on. However, I do understand the mother's reaction.

Sorry Ariadne the posts crossed. I understand the point of the poem. Nevertheless, I still think this was an interesting, even valuable exercise.

But the point of the poem...