Did you hear about Marcus the lamb? In case not, basically Marcus was one of the animals on a farm started by an elementary school in Kent, England. The idea was that the farm would help the children learn about farming and where our food comes from, etc.
I think it sounds like a great idea, better than a lot of other drivel that's been added to school curricula in recent years. I wish my kids had had such an opportunity. {You see, although where we live is surrounded by hills full of gamboling lambs, we're still kind of cut off from the reality of farm life.}
Of course one of the key educational objectives from this project is that the children will learn that animals on the farm are, well, tomorrow's food. That was always going to be one of the lessons of the farm.
Inevitably, some of the kids got attached to little Marcus and some of them didn't want Marcus to be slaughtered. Equally inevitably, however, was the reaction of a minority of the parents.
Their little dears were 'traumatized' at the thoughts of Marcus being killed and rather than tell them that this is how life is, they decided to feed the traumatic frenzy. Three mothers started an internet campaign to save Marcus and, also inevitably, animal rights celebrities and lunatics (often one and the same) jumped in to help try and save Marcus.
Despite this, when the time came, the principal, backed by the staff, school board AND a 13-1 vote by the student council, culled Marcus and he was sent away to become someone's Sunday roast, as he should have been or the farm lessons would have been lost.
Now - and this was all inevitable too - the school is facing serious threats from the lunatics and at least one of the campaigning mothers has contacted a lawyer with a view to suing the school for the distress her child has suffered.
I can accept it might have been genuinely stressful for this girl to accept that Marcus was going to be killed. But, kids get over that kind of thing. Pretty easily, actually. What this poor girl will have real trouble getting over is her mothers' excessive cosseting and the stigma of being the girl whose mother sued the school over a farm animal.
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Comments:
atlanticdreams wrote:
This is horrible. Maybe back in the day people went out and killed their dinners but schoolchildren used to go down the mines too and we hardly want those days back? Or do we?
9/15/2009 11:44 AM EDT
Ajreaper wrote:
I don't think the students participated or witnessed the slaughter- it says the animal was sent away. Three are many children who grow up on farms and/or ranches who not only witness but participate in the slaughter of livestock and they are not scarred for life by it. Reality in the real world does not change or go away no matter how much parents wish to shelter little johnny and Mary from it.
9/15/2009 12:16 PM EDT
lilyfrog wrote:
This is about the meanest thing I've ever seen. Those poor children; I can't even look at this picture myself without wanting to cry. It's just shameful, it really is.
9/15/2009 12:24 PM EDT
TheYank wrote:
Ajreaper
I totally agree. Kids are not scarred by the reality of where our food comes from. They deal with it quite well. I never experienced it other than looking at Bambi hanging from people's trees in our town. I was never sure if they hung the deer outside because it was so cold in our area in the winter that it was basically like a deep freeze or was there some other reason for it. Regardless, I'm over it and would eat a piece of venison if it came before me.
atlanticdreams.
There's a massive difference between sending kids down to mine coal - where they might get killed or maimed in an accident or suffer the ill effects of breathing foul air or, at a minimum be denied an education - and letting them look their dinner in the eye.
9/15/2009 4:04 PM EDT
JennLois wrote:
Seriously people, where do you think your lamb meat comes from???? Yes, a lamb just like Marcus. The kids will get attached to something so cute, but they will get over it. The parents dragging it out are just making it worse. And they are looking to just make some "easy" money by suing. Seriously, this society has become way to sue-happy. Something doesn't go my way....sue! Someone calls me a name...sue! Someone looked at me wrong...sue! Wow! Pathetic!
9/24/2009 3:01 PM EDT
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