Although I know I wouldn't really be able to do it, some times I can't help but wonder if my kids would be better off if I homeschooled them and they didn't have to be exposed to some of the crazy work some teachers seem to be assigning these days. From asking students to think like serial killers to telling them to brainstorm plans for selling African slaves, it sounds like some teachers need to go back to school themselves and be taught how to teach. Now a French teacher has been suspended after asking his 13- and14-year-old students to write imaginary suicide notes. The teacher, who hasn't been named, allegedly told students to think about what their letter would say if they were "disgusted" with their lives and decided to end it.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, these were the instructions for the October assignment:
You've just turned 18. You've decided to end your life. Your decision is definitive. In a final surge you decide to put in words the reason behind your decision. In the style of a self-portrait, you describe the disgust you have for yourself. Your text will retrace certain events in your life at the origin of these feelings.
Is this a joke? What could have possibly possessed this teacher to think that this was the kind of homework he needed to assign his young and very impressionable teenage students?
Read more in ¿Qué más?: Teacher asks students to think like a serial killer in bizarre homework assignment
Considering the high incidence of teenage suicide, I can't imagine the reasoning behind such an insensitive homework assignment and I would've been livid if my child came home with it. I'm in complete agreement with the teens' parents who describe themselves as appalled by the teacher's actions.
While I believe the topic is one that needs to be discussed in schools, there are countless way to do so without having to put students–some of whom may already have their own suicidal thoughts–in such an inconsiderate situation.
Image via openpad/flickr
