Pet lamb sent to slaughter.

[modeller]

The head teacher Andrea Charman has resigned after receiving hate mail from parents for sending their childrens pet lamb to slaughter and serving it up for school dinner. The children had hand reared the lamb from a baby given it a name and considered it their pet.
Andrea Chapman claimed that had been the purpose all along and that the children had approved of her action. The parents thought otherwise and she received hate mail from them and from all over the world . What do you think of her actions ?

[andy-hughes]

I think the proceedure was poorly judged and executed - if you'll pardon the expression.

The notion that primary children can understand the concept of 'feed' animals as against 'pets' is a tenuous one at best. This seems like an adult attempting to 'edcuate' children in a very ham-fisted and badly-thought-way.

Children may understand the nebulous concept of 'slaughter' in the way they understand that pets go to pet heaven 'in the sky' but then seeing the animal driven away must bring home to them the reality of slaughter in a very cruel and hearltess manner.

Would the parents have been as keen if the slaughterman had brought his bolt gun and done the deed on the playground - or is it just slaughter 'out of sight' that is OK.

A pet is a pet, and a food animal and you cannot hope to explain the difference to small children in this way.

I am glad the head resigned - not because what she did was cruel - which it was - but that she showed such a crass lack of forward thinking, understanding of small children, and the difference between childish and adult perceptions of death.

Such a woman should not be working with children, much less in charge of a primary school.

[modeller]

Oh ABerrant I stressed the word 'pet' because that's what they were doing.
If they want to run a farm, great , no problem , but farmers do not treat their animals as pets. Had they run a farm as a farm I doubt there would have been this outcry.

[ABerrant]

Who were the 'they' using the word "pet" which you then stressed?

The school that makes constant reference to a farm. Or those who knew little about what the school were doing and jumped on the bandwagon.

Should we now send a posse of Social Workers to remove all primary school age children from their homes because they are the offspring of farmers?

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his ilk best beware!

[modeller]

ABerrant Everyone else understands , so what particular use of the third person plural pronoun is it that you are having difficulty with ?

[welshlibranr]

I just think that this is very sad, if you hand rear a lamb, and treat it as a pet, which is not what usually happens in farming, then you cannot then slaughter it and serve it up for lunch to the children!! even though it was Andrea Chapman's intention all along, she really should have realised that it was never going to be understood by those children! I think it's dreadful to put them through this trauma, there are kinder ways of making them know where their food come from!.................................

[fredpuli47]

Well, I'm one farmer who would never let his children befriend an animal in that way and then let them know it was slaughtered. Talking about country children is misleading. Country children are fully aware happens to the beef cattle or chickens on a farm. But there's a difference. They view those animals and birds as commodities. To them the difference is that between what town children might see as the 'sweet little rabbits' that they, country children, take their ferrets to kill and the 'sweet little rabbits' that they keep in a hutch. If you really want kids to know about food production, take them to a slaughterhouse.There they can see animals as commodities,killed to make the burgers or bacon they eat.

[ABerrant]

I wonder how many of the handful of parents who coordinated the campaign in the name of protection from the potential trauma of a lamb's death also protected their children from the potential trauma of witnessing their Headteacher being vilified and subject to vile abuse and threats?

We should now pass a law that no relative of primary age schoolchildren should die else the child is traumatised.

[welshlibranr]

Oh! we could debate this issue all night! but in the end it was just a very bad decision by a head teacher! These are children, and don't need to be subjected to these harsh realities so soon in their lives..................there's time enough for that in later life.............when they have a little more understanding..................... that's just my view! but I would not want a child of mine subjected to this kind of thing at all!............ What about you? if your child was attending this school, and was distressed by this?................maybe your opinion would change?.....................

[ABerrant]

Thus you agree with the above provisions to shelter children from harsh realities:

i. Farmers of livestock allowed no children.
ii. Close relatives not allowed to die.


The harsh reality of this story is that the Press (the above mentioned "they") named the lamb;
the school farm was not a petting farm (even if "they" call it such) and cannot be construed as such just because the animals are hand-reared - if the lambs were not hand-fed they would have died a lot sooner.

[craft1948]

I had a friend who lived in the Yorkshire countryside and his wife decided to keep goats for their milk, and to make cheese (they were obviously mad and from Essex). One of the goats gave birth, unfortunately to a billy....when I asked his 7 year old son what they had called the new goat he said...."Dinner".

[welshlibranr]

Yes, ABerrant, but lots of 'ifs' and 'buts' here! The fact remains that this lamb was treated as a 'pet' and in my mind it should not have been if the intention was to slaughter and eat it within a school environment!! sorry I still think it as grossly inappropriate, and you won't ever change my view!..................

[craft1948]

I don't think they had it for school dinner.....

[welshlibranr]

craft, if you read the earlier post, I think you'll find that they did, in fact, serve it up for school lunch!...............absolutely dreadful!................

[craft1948]

weird that welsh.....I understood it was raffled to buy some pigs.....

[ABerrant]

"They" said it was served as school lunch.

Another harsh reality is the meat was raffled to enable the farm to purchase a pig (with the intention to become sausages).

[craft1948]

thanks AB that was my, totally unbiased understanding of the situation.
I just think, that in this day and age, with people supposedly finding bullying abhorrent, that this lady who as I said previously, has lifted her school out of special needs, and has the backing of the school governors, the local council, and her MP, can be forced out by a bunch of vindictive parents, who actively stirred up opposition to her using online chatrooms.

[welshlibranr]

Sorry! i'm sure the original post stated that they were serving it up for school dinners, but to use it to buy a pig, to make sausages! well, sorry but that's truly awful!!!......

[craft1948]

sorry welsh............where do you think sausages come from?

[DrFilth]

asda ?

[joggerjayne]

f f s ...

What did the parents think the school was going to do ?

Keep it until they had a full grown sheep on their hands ?

And these parents were what ? ... protesting outside the gates ?

What a bunch of oiks.

And was this lamb cruelly beaten to death, or something ?

Presumably not.

All the hardships and problems in society, and all they have to worry about is some emotional ties with a farm animal ?

Those people don't have enough to do.

I suppose, while they are fcuking about outside the school gates, my taxes are paying for their children's education !