Today my ten year old boy told me that at school he was told to write a story, imagining he was a witness at the shooting of the two year old boy by gang members on Saturday. When the teacher was asked "Why?" by one of the children, she got annoyed and replied that we don't want this to happen again!
Apart from my kids not watching tv, let alone the news, how does getting ten year olds to imagine what it would be like to be a witness to the murder of another child somehow prevent it ever happening again? I don't want my ten year old imagining murder - anyone's murder, let alone having to write about it in school!
Looks like another visit to the principal tomorrow morning.
Apart from my kids not watching tv, let alone the news, how does getting ten year olds to imagine what it would be like to be a witness to the murder of another child somehow prevent it ever happening again? I don't want my ten year old imagining murder - anyone's murder, let alone having to write about it in school!
Looks like another visit to the principal tomorrow morning.
Am I crazy, or are our educationalists out of their trees?
ReplyDeleteted3001
ReplyDeleteIf you are crazy I guess I am too.
But it is because we are crazy that educationalists think they need to teach our children what to think in case our children pick up our craziness instead of what the educational establishment thinks is important.
If it was me I'd pull my kids out of that school and write a letter to the BoT telling them exactly why. I'd also cc the letter to the MoE, the DomPost and NZEI.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, that is just plain stupid and dangerous.
I spoke to the teacher this morning. She said to me that she'd not thought of it from my perspective (wanting to protect my children until they are old enough), and so will backtrack a bit with the lesson on it tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI was very clear I didn't this subject was appropriate for 10 year olds. Maybe 14-15 year olds, but definitely not 10 year olds.
Her reason for doing it was because of the conflict in the class between a number of students - so she wanted to show what could happen when there was conflict.
Whatever happened to talking the disruptive children's parents? The last school I was at did that.
Mr Tips, I'm currently working out and then will be writing up a home-schooling application. I've only just swapped them from a Steiner school into the Catholic school and don't want to just swap them again. The application can take a month to be approved and in the meantime, I just have to keep in contact with the teachers whenever there is anything disturbing that they tell me about.
Home schooling, New Zealands #1 growth industry - outside the the public service of course.
ReplyDeleteUgh, that is terrible!
ReplyDeleteI heard about another incident today from some people I know. A girl at a school fainted and had to be taken to hospital. Later, when the girls' father rang up to find out what had happened, the school said that they weren't allowed to tell him anything.
He ended up ringing a friend of his daughter who told him what had happened and that his daughter had been taken to hospital.
PC madness...
Seen that horror movie "children of the corn"?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the kids could band together like that?
Anyways, Turina Turia tells me that gangs aren't into crime, that they are, in fact, just like a bridge club with leather jackets.