Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/11/high-school-apologizes-for-ass.html
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If there is any class to be late for, this is the one.
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Man, it’s never the “Cheney suicide note” story you’re hoping for.
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I wonder what could have happened if a suicidal student (at the tipping point) had received this homework assignment.
I have an absolutely massive respect for teachers, but whoever came up with this assignment must be… spoken to.
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I think it’s an excellent writing exercise. Definitely not appropriate for vulnerable youth.
Imagine being involved in a freak accident on your way to school with your suicide note homework in your backpack. “How did he know that a Chinese satellite would crash in this very spot? How did he know!!”
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I sometimes assign my college freshman to write their obituary, as an exercise in clarifying and expressing their priorities and purpose in life. But I’d never assign that to high school students, and I’d certainly never assign anyone to write a suicide note! I mean, that betrays a real disconnection with the culture as a whole and the adolescent mind in particular.
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Clearly the writers of 13 Reasons Why have managed to do a better job of tapping into the zeitgeist…
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If someone asks me to write a suicide note, I assume they are planning to kill me.
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As someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation for much of my adult life, I find this terrifying. An assignment like this could very well push an already suicidal person over the edge, as suggested in an earlier post. The casual cruelty of assigning a suicide note as an English paper makes me feel ill.
A teacher with so little awareness has no business working in education.
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That’s kind of an important detail, isn’t it? It’s not like they were being assigned to write their own suicide notes.
For those unfamiliar with the tale, An Inspector Calls is about a proper English family shocked to learn that each of them in his or her own way contributed little by not-so-little to driving said young woman to suicide. I would agree it’s not really an appropriate exercise, especially in these more enlightened times, but it at least makes some kind of sense in context; this being a “GCSE set text”, I would not be surprised to learn that this assignment has been used for many years prior to this. (Again I emphasize that its time has probably passed.)
I suppose similar objections are likely raised to those studying Hamlet and tasked with analyzing Ophelia’s motivations. (Remember that bit in Anne of Green Gables wherein Anne re-enacts Ophelia’s death?)
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Not really an appropriate thing to ask of ANY student whose life had been touched by suicide. Which might well be any student you meet.
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The possibility that this decision was made on an institutional or cultural level is even more chilling.
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So is suicide specially taboo; or is any exercise in identification with a literary and/or historical character with some amount of tragic backstory off the table?
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I fell suicidal a lot, and something like this can be the catalyst to push me to make an attempt. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t my note, my brain will find a way to make it mine.
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@beschizza, can you link to this in the article?
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Before assigning them to write the suicide note I’d assign them to write the confession to the crime I had committed.
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I presume this was part of some kind of “Brexit Preparedness” lesson plan…
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I wholeheartedly agree with you. And its not even so much that the assignment might trigger someone at risk in the class, as its the lack of comprehension of how stigmitizing this is likely to be to any student who’s even considered it. It reminds me of the teacher who singled out the black student to play the slave in her class exercise.
Media coverage of real suicides typically only does the one thing right in its stories, and ignores all the others. Yes, theyre great about linking to the hotline number. But then they typically ignore every other guideline out there. I guess they imagine the headline wouldnt sell as well if they followed best practices.
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/June-2018/Why-Suicide-Reporting-Guidelines-Matter
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Because his name was Donny.
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There’s an old joke (from Paul Merton I think) where someone asks him what he’s writing.
“Suicide Note.”
“Oh.”
“How do you spell your surname?”
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