Okay, I don't know that I really needed more proof that people are stupid...

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

but I keep getting it.

My daughter's school, unfortunately, keeps churning out the evidence.

So Julia is in their gifted program. The group gets together once a week for special assignments and discussions. The teacher was talking about peer bonding and asked the kids if any of them had suffered a death in their immediate family.

Several children raised their hands and the teacher, we'll call him Mr. Brain, asked each child (6th grade, 11 and 12 year olds) what family member they had lost. One boy's mother had died when he was six years old.

After a bit more chat, Mr. Brain came back to the boy (let's call him Dylan) and asked Dylan, in front of the class, if there were "any positive points" to his mother dying. Dylan looked horrified, turned a weird color, and stammered that no, he couldn't think of anything positive about it.

To which Mr. Brain replied, "Well, you're probably too young to have that sort of perspective."

You think? Unless your mother is Medusa, there aren't too many twelve year olds who will be able to cite and appreciate the upside of their mother's young demise.

Julia said that the kid never lost that weird color and sat there in a trance for the rest of the period. She felt so bad for him.

Holy shit.

scarletpeaches · Jan 14, 2011

Okay, I'm speaking as a non-maternal woman who never wants to give birth ever but--

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Are you for real? This happened? :Wha:

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

Unless Julia has suddenly turned into a pathological (and Academy Award worthy) liar, it happened.

She was horrified. She said the boy just sat there in a daze for the rest of the group meeting and she couldn't stop looking over and feeling terrible about what the teacher had said.

These people are incredible.

Cranky · Jan 14, 2011

Mr. Brain is an asshole. What a crappy thing to say to anyone, let alone a child.

firedrake · Jan 14, 2011

What a clueless, fucking wanker.

Time to phone the Principal I think :Wha:

Jess Haines · Jan 14, 2011

dot dot dot

I can't accept that this is real. Good Lord, does this person truly have ZERO sense of humanity, compassion, and/or common sense?

I really hope you brought this up as a complaint to whoever manages the program at that school.

scarletpeaches · Jan 14, 2011

Are you sure Mr Brain is even of the same species as the rest of us?

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

There was another girl who had lost her baby brother. Thankfully, he didn't ask her if this freed up the spare bedroom for her Barbie castle and springhorse.

The exercise was, I guess, an illustration of how similar life experiences create common ground. He went on to say that he felt a special bond with Dylan and littleMissbrotherless, because he too had lost a family member.

It boggles the mind.

bip · Jan 14, 2011

At what age would you get that "perspective"?

scarletpeaches · Jan 14, 2011

Oh. Yeah. I'm sure Dylan felt very comforted by this bond.

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

Jess Haines said:
I really hope you brought this up as a complaint to whoever manages the program at that school.

I don't know what to do. I'm already in a bit of an odd place because of a conflict I had with a teacher early in the year.

(detailed here, but not necessary for this discussion)
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195080

scarletpeaches · Jan 14, 2011

I would perhaps encourage Julia to extend the hand of friendship somehow, in a way that didn't remind Dylan too badly of Mr Brain's monumental faux pas.

LaurieD · Jan 14, 2011

OMG.

Of all the things to find in common between kids, he brings up the death of a family member? And then expects a motherless kid to find something positive about it?

Asshole.

PercyBlok · Jan 14, 2011

Tell your daughter to be on the look-out for Dylan wearing a long black trench coat to school.

Mr. Brain, well, he could just be some sort of sick f'er.

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

I can't help recall that when she was in the third grade, the counselor gathered the children together and invited them to all tell stories of family fights and crises to the class.

I actually had to go in and tell him (totally different him) that is probably wasn't a great idea to have third graders telling the class how mommy drinks and they hide under the table when she fights with her boyfriend and then they go into the bedroom and... seriously. Julia was telling me these stories at the dinner table and I said, "How do you know this stuff?"

"Mr. Jones told us to tell the class about out parents' fights."

Mr. Jones turned out to be a sincerely nice man who hadn't thought of the further implications of third graders dishing Jerry Springer to their classmates.

*headdesk*

scarletpeaches · Jan 14, 2011

Have they no sense of decorum, dignity and privacy of grief?

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 14, 2011

Good lord.

KTC · Jan 14, 2011

Perks said:
but I keep getting it.

My daughter's school, unfortunately, keeps churning out the evidence.

So Julia is in their gifted program. The group gets together once a week for special assignments and discussions. The teacher was talking about peer bonding and asked the kids if any of them had suffered a death in their immediate family.

Several children raised their hands and the teacher, we'll call him Mr. Brain, asked each child (6th grade, 11 and 12 year olds) what family member they had lost. One boy's mother had died when he was six years old.

After a bit more chat, Mr. Brain came back to the boy (let's call him Dylan) and asked Dylan, in front of the class, if there were "any positive points" to his mother dying. Dylan looked horrified, turned a weird color, and stammered that no, he couldn't think of anything positive about it.

To which Mr. Brain replied, "Well, you're probably too young to have that sort of perspective."

You think? Unless your mother is Medusa, there aren't too many twelve year olds who will be able to cite and appreciate the upside of their mother's young demise.

Julia said that the kid never lost that weird color and sat there in a trance for the rest of the period. She felt so bad for him.

Holy shit.

Medusa's 12-year old would think that her hair was as beautiful as her heart and soul. You seriously have to take your children out of that school already! Isn't there a chimpanzee daycare in your area? Seriously...that school of yours sounds like a drop in centre for crazy people. That teacher needs to get back on the short bus and go back to pulling out his nasal hairs and examining them for the secret mysteries of the universe. What the hell is he doing with children!?

tjwriter · Jan 14, 2011

mscelina · Jan 14, 2011

Perks said:
but I keep getting it.

My daughter's school, unfortunately, keeps churning out the evidence.

So Julia is in their gifted program. The group gets together once a week for special assignments and discussions. The teacher was talking about peer bonding and asked the kids if any of them had suffered a death in their immediate family.

Several children raised their hands and the teacher, we'll call him Mr. Brain, asked each child (6th grade, 11 and 12 year olds) what family member they had lost. One boy's mother had died when he was six years old.

After a bit more chat, Mr. Brain came back to the boy (let's call him Dylan) and asked Dylan, in front of the class, if there were "any positive points" to his mother dying. Dylan looked horrified, turned a weird color, and stammered that no, he couldn't think of anything positive about it.

To which Mr. Brain replied, "Well, you're probably too young to have that sort of perspective."

You think? Unless your mother is Medusa, there aren't too many twelve year olds who will be able to cite and appreciate the upside of their mother's young demise.

Julia said that the kid never lost that weird color and sat there in a trance for the rest of the period. She felt so bad for him.

Holy shit.

Good grief. *headdesk* How in the world can this kind of crap happen? Seriously? It sucks when you have to un-teach what people *teach* in school. And, on top of that, I can't see what this possibly has to do with any curriculum that would be in place for a talented and gifted program. I was in the talented and gifted program in school at that age. We did genealogical charts and made movies.

PercyBlok said:
Tell your daughter to be on the look-out for Dylan wearing a long black trench coat to school.

A completely uncalled for and inappropriate comment. For shame.

Wicked · Jan 14, 2011

Egad. And Mr. "We're Bonded by Shared Pain" got a job with kids? People scare me.

Wonder if he's related to "Mr. History" who subbed at my son's school.
Mr. History was talking about how the passenger pigeons went extinct. He asked the class if they could name any other animals that had gone extinct in the last 100 years.
My son, "The Thylacine."
Mr. History gives son dirty look, and in nasty tone says, "We're not talking about make believe animals like dinosaurs."
My son, "No, Thylacine, the Tasmanian Tiger. They were hunted to extinction by sheep farmers."
Mr. History then called my son a liar and said he was making it up.

PercyBlok · Jan 14, 2011

Teach is trying to uncover the deep seeded problems for further "in-depth" handling. Next thing you know, meds are being discussed in addition to "suggested" counseling. Hell, school isn't school without all the home "diversity".

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

mscelina said:
And, on top of that, I can't see what this possibly has to do with any curriculum that would be in place for a talented and gifted program.

This. This, this, this.

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

bip said:
At what age would you get that "perspective"?

At forty I understand that I was better off without my father's daily influence (he died when I was nine.) He was mentally ill and the situation would have been more fraught than it was, possibly even dangerous. But it took decades for me to be able to process that. At twelve, I still pined for what might have been. I can't imagine how being singled out like that would have twisted me.

Perks · Jan 14, 2011

What's kind of funny about this is that you couldn't write it in a story. No one would believe you and you'd lose all credibility.

File under - Stranger Than Fiction

Okay, I don't know that I really needed more proof that people are stupid...

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