like a lamb to the slaughter

[folkestonesgull]

This story is getting a lot of local attention and has been picked up by the national press

BBC NEWS | England | Kent | School row lamb sent to slaughter


What do the people of NSC think about this? Personally I am fully in agreement with the headteacher...

 

[Tricky Dicky]

This story is getting a lot of local attention and has been picked up by the national press

BBC NEWS | England | Kent | School row lamb sent to slaughter


What do the people of NSC think about this? Personally I am fully in agreement with the headteacher...

Didn't read the entire link, but saw something about it on the news. As long as it's done in a respectful way, I think it is a very healthy thing to do (apart from for the lamb, obviously). The kids ought to know where their food comes from (so should all adults, if you ask me, veggies and non-veggies alike).

With more education like this, maybe we could waste less food and treat animals in a respectful way while they are alive.

 

[Acker79]

The animal protection charity, Peta, said it had contacted Ms Charman asking for the slaughter programme to be shut down.

A letter to Ms Charman, sent before news of Marcus' slaughter was released, said: "We urge you once again to spare Marcus' life - teaching the children how animals feel love, joy, fear and pain, just like us.

"We also ask that you shut this programme down.

"The children have got to know and love Marcus and it is now the perfect chance to introduce humanity, compassion, respect and understanding to the school instead of betrayal."

Oh dear.

 

[strings]

Didn't read the entire link, but saw something about it on the news. As long as it's done in a respectful way, I think it is a very healthy thing to do (apart from for the lamb, obviously). The kids ought to know where their food comes from (so should all adults, if you ask me, veggies and non-veggies alike).

With more education like this, maybe we could waste less food and treat animals in a respectful way while they are alive.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[Easy 10]

I have no objection to children knowing where their food comes from - thats only right and proper. Of course they should know.

However, it seems the school allowed the kids to get rather too close and attached to this lamb, feeding it and petting it, so by the end, it really was like a pet to them. So after being allowed to form a close relationship (of sorts), it would obviously be deeply upsetting for some of the kids to have the lamb taken away to its death.

If you want to upset kids then fine. But there are other ways of educating them as to where our food comes from.

 

[Simster]

Easy is right IMO. It's not the idea of killing the lamb for food that is the problem here. It is the facts that a) it has been brought up as a pet and b) parents have only just been told what the eventual outcome will be. (they were't informed from the start)

It's been handled very shabbily.

 

[Market Porter]

When is the raffle?

 

[Easy 10]

The intentions of the school were good. Its just the execution.

(pun fully intended).

 

[The Spanish]

Agree. The head sounds like an attention seeking show off. Plus its primary school kids. Nowhere in that teachers remit is a duty to tell primary age kids that baa lambs get put in pies. some may know, some may not care, some may not be ready for it, or their parents may not feel they are. f***ing idiotic approach.

for his next trick he will be getting the kids to visit elderly people near the school and then taking them to their funerals when they pop their clogs to learn about death.

He come across a bit of a prick to me. his hoped for reaction that loads of hyper sensitive idiots would be in uproar and he could appear more worldly, has been drowned, in my guess, by a tide of reasonable behaviour and common sense.

 

[beorhthelm]

if you read, the children themselves voted 13-1 to send the lamb to slaughter. seems they already understand how thing work, and more grown up than those pathetic Peta clowns.

 

[strings]

for his next trick he will be getting the kids to visit elderly people near the school and then taking them to their funerals when they pop their clogs to learn about death.

That has to be one of my favourite sentences on NSC this year.

I agree that it is important that kids know where their food comes from but, as easy says, it is all in the execution.

 

[sten_super]

Easy is right IMO. It's not the idea of killing the lamb for food that is the problem here. It is the facts that a) it has been brought up as a pet and b) parents have only just been told what the eventual outcome will be. (they were't informed from the start)

It's been handled very shabbily.

I don't agree. I'll have to take your word about parents not knowing the ultimate outcome until now, as I've not read anything about that, but the idea that it's deeply distressing to the kids seems to be wrong.

"Last term, the school council - made up of 14 seven to 11-year-olds - voted 13 to one in favour of sending Marcus to slaughter rather than keeping him."

That doesn't look to me like the actions of a load of distressed school kids. Far more likely the response is from a load of distressed parents. It's much better than children (and people in general) know what happens to their food, than believe in some utopian magic where there's no suffering or inhumanity associated with eating meat (and this comes from a very keen meat-eater!).

 

[Hotchilidog]

Seems pretty sick to me.

Unless they slaughtered the animal in the playground the children will still not really learn about where their meat comes from.

It smacks of a publicity seeking stunt by the head to me and an animal dies unneccesarily because of it.

 

[Acker79]

Are the kids going to the slaughterhouse to watch, or did they just one day go to their 'farm' and see The lamb had gone?

 

[Easy 10]

I don't agree. I'll have to take your word about parents not knowing the ultimate outcome until now, as I've not read anything about that, but the idea that it's deeply distressing to the kids seems to be wrong.

"Last term, the school council - made up of 14 seven to 11-year-olds - voted 13 to one in favour of sending Marcus to slaughter rather than keeping him."

That doesn't look to me like the actions of a load of distressed school kids. Far more likely the response is from a load of distressed parents. It's much better than children (and people in general) know what happens to their food, than believe in some utopian magic where there's no suffering or inhumanity associated with eating meat (and this comes from a very keen meat-eater!).

Nobodies saying that kids have to be kept in IGNORANCE of the facts, of course not. And its a very important lesson.
Its just that raising a lamb as a pet (and rightly or wrongly, most kids that age WOULD have considered that lamb as a pet, as they regularly fed it and stroked it), and then taking it away to be slaughtered, would inevitably have been very upsetting for some of them.

As for the student council vote...speculation of course, but I can't help but feel they'll have been heavily influenced by their teachers agenda that the lamb had to go. Plus when I was that age at school, the kids on the school council were usually the swotty little no-mates who thought they were on a power trip making up laws for the rest of us.

 

[sten_super]

Nobodies saying that kids have to be kept in IGNORANCE of the facts, of course not. And its a very important lesson.
Its just that raising a lamb as a pet (and rightly or wrongly, most kids that age WOULD have considered that lamb as a pet, as they regularly fed it and stroked it), and then taking it away to be slaughtered, would inevitably have been very upsetting for some of them.

As for the student council vote...speculation of course, but I can't help but feel they'll have been heavily influenced by their teachers agenda that the lamb had to go. Plus when I was that age at school, the kids on the school council were usually the swotty little no-mates who thought they were on a power trip making up laws for the rest of us.

Sorry Easy, your argument makes no sense to me. In the first paragraph, you seem to be arguing that we need to take the kids views into account, that they feel it is a pet. In the second paragraph, you are saying that we should disregard the views of the kids, as they aren't in a suitable position to make a decision. Isn't that just adapting the facts to suit your own viewpoint? Which is it, should we take account of their views or not?

 

[Easy 10]

Sorry Easy, your argument makes no sense to me. In the first paragraph, you seem to be arguing that we need to take the kids views into account, that they feel it is a pet. In the second paragraph, you are saying that we should disregard the views of the kids, as they aren't in a suitable position to make a decision. Isn't that just adapting the facts to suit your own viewpoint? Which is it, should we take account of their views or not?

I'm not saying that we SHOULD disregard the views of the student council, just that the outcome of the vote was probably heavily influenced by the teachers wishes. The point is, the teachers shouldn't really have been putting the children in this position in the first place. Do farmers ask people to vote on whether or not to slaughter their livestock ? Of course not. So what has this whole episode really taught them ?

There are ways and means to educate children on the origins of their lambchops. Hand-raising a lamb and then putting it to an executioners vote on the slaughter just ain't one of them.

 

[DCgull]

Oh Christ, I'll bite.

I do not believe for a second that this is a lesson in where our food comes from. This may be the naive belief of the head teacher (I don't know them) but all this does is to normalise the killing of animals for food. I appreciate that it is the behaviour of the majority but that doesn't make it right.
Most animals do not have the hallowed status of 'pet' before they are killed. They are disposable units of production where only utilitarian calculations apply to their 'well being'.

Perhaps a better lesson to teach the kids is: you love Marcus; Marcus is very similar to other animals whose remains end up on your plate; therefore, don't put the remains of those like Marcus on your plate.

 

[glasfryn]

seen this happen in life so many times, need room for a dog instead of the cat,need room for a budgie instead of the cat so the easy way is to get rid of the one you have although in this case at least it won't be put on the street for someone else to pick up the pieces.
Smacks a bit of the new toy syndrome.
So why could they have not given him away/sold it to make room.

 

[Was not Was]

all this does is to normalise the killing of animals for food

Yes, but ...

... surely the main livestock breeds of sheep, cows, pigs, etc are only abundant because they are bred by humans to be killed for food.

So it's 'normal' already. You can't change that.

Aren't the issues we need to deal with about welfare during life and at slaughter, and reducing the amount of meat we all eat due to the carbon intensity of livestock rearing?

In the long run, that will reduce the number of animals killed for food (and make it less normal, if you like). But then there won't be billions of happy sheep running around - once we're eating less of 'em, we'll breed less of 'em.