Andrea Charman, The Lamb Marcus, And The Online Protest.

[murtle]

I can see your line of argument but I dont think the links are necessarily clear enough to deduce that myself, EG

 

It says The School Council of 14 children voted, (5 or 6% if there were 250 in the school)

 

It also says many were claimed by parents to be traumatised ................ How many? - More than the 13 voting in favour?.......... and what does this say about what the School was teaching that Council about democracy & properly representing the views of those they were (presumably) elected to represent rather than just their own opinions?

 

Also, that the children voted to send Marcus to market (rather than that the children voted to slaughter him?) They are from a farming community so maybe they understood exactly what that meant, or, maybe they didn't (otherwise why would they be traumatised?) Exactly what was the question put to the School Council?

 

 

 

Murtle, an interesting view point / personal experience at a young age to start with .......... and then I got "confused" .......... pineapples...... I'd have looked above my head too, where else do they grow? Coconuts... green & orange because they aren't yet mature or because they are diseased? (even I don't quite know everything you know )

 

 

Pineapples grow on plants, not trees.

The brown husk part is inside the external husk, so you won't find hairy brown things hanging from palm trees!!

 

Mxxx

[cycas]

i don't think the teacher should have been made to quit her job especially since the student council and governers agreed

 

She wasn't made to quit, she chose to resign. I can see why she would make that decision, as I read that she has been personally threatened, but none the less, it's not the same thing.

 

I hope the police will be investigating those threats : this is a controversial issue, but that's really not on.

[greys mum]

I went to a country school (many moons ago!!!) where they had a mini farm. The animals were raised, looked after and then killed at the local abbatoir. They were used as food in the school kitchen. We all knew what was what, because it was explained to us. Although we never went to the abbatior.

 

No parental fuss and no traumatised children. Was it because we were tougher mentally and knew that was where our food came from? Or is it because food is all prepacked these days? Or are people that bit more precious now?

Edited February 21, 2010 by greys mum

[chickentikka]

..........and people use words like traumatised when they really mean a bit upset

[Ian]

I used to childmind for someone who owned the hunt pack in our local areas ( don't get me started on that , no i don't agree with it and i was 16 and doing school holiday cover). he used to collect all the still borns (calves) and skin/butcher them in his shed to feed to the pack. That whilst creeping me out a little was at least a natural death for the calves,but he used to let his kid ( 2 yr old) watch him skinning the animals whilst they were hung from the ceiling,i'm sorry but I just don't see how exposing such a young child to that on a regular basis won't make the kid have a slightly skewed view of death.it was messy and dirty not butcher shop clean, and the dogs obviously would go nuts when they were fed it.

 

I agree, both on the natural death and not understanding why any father would want to let / make a 2 year old watch that. It's a wonder the poor kid didn't have nightmares

[Ian]

Pineapples grow on plants, not trees.

The brown husk part is inside the external husk, so you won't find hairy brown things hanging from palm trees!!

 

Mxxx

 

Thankyou

[Ian]

She wasn't made to quit, she chose to resign. I can see why she would make that decision, as I read that she has been personally threatened, but none the less, it's not the same thing.

 

I hope the police will be investigating those threats : this is a controversial issue, but that's really not on.

 

I wouldn't quit myself - just to make a point - but I can see why some might decide to do so especially if they had their own children to worry about etc) & agree it's just not on. Is this parents making threats or external "cyber facists" the Times link referred to do you know?

[Ian]

I went to a country school (many moons ago!!!) where they had a mini farm. The animals were raised, looked after and then killed at the local abbatoir. They were used as food in the school kitchen. We all knew what was what, because it was explained to us. Although we never went to the abbatior.

 

No parental fuss and no traumatised children. Was it because we were tougher mentally and knew that was where our food came from? Or is it because food is all prepacked these days? Or are people that bit more precious now?

 

 

It could possibly be a little of each of those is true I guess. I know the old lady who used to live next door to and was friends with my Dad & who I still call in on & make sure she's okay etc grew up in the country, her Dad would kill animals for them to eat when she was young etc & though she didn't like it she certainly wasn't traumatised (though I don't know how young when she first learned of it). When you say Country School was that your primary school or were you a little older?

[murtle]

My parents used to keep chickens, and though we used to get herded away, one or both of us used to go back to watch them being killed. Sister was upto 4 and I was upto 2 at the time. I have no idea why we would do that, but it's not left any lasting effect on us, that I am aware of. We actually don't remember doing it.

 

Pleasure Ian

Edited February 22, 2010 by murtle

[sproggie14]

As another veggie/vegan I'm with Billy basically. The thought of this lamb being reared and loved and then killed sickens me but far better that he had a nice life first than went through what other meat animals go through.

 

And again much as I hate the whole thing I'm glad these children have been made to see where the meat comes from. I was born adoring animals, it has been my primary identifying feature since day 1, yet I ate meat all through my childhood without a second thought. It was only when my family started having holidays on a farm and the lambs I hand reared and adored with every bit as much devotion as I now love my dogs went to slaughter that it finally clicked for me and I haven't eaten meat since (20 years this year). It still hurts now to think that my lambs met that fate but I wouldn't trade that pain for anything as it's what keeps me away from meat. If every child had to make that connection then the world would be a far far better place.

[reds]

Bit of a pointless article really; nothing other than a headline. An animal was reared at a school and slaughtered for meat and people were upset about it - and what exactly?

 

Isn't that pretty normal? At our secondary school (early '90's) cows and geese were kept for the rural studies class. The children (3rd year and above) actually slaughtered the geese themselves. I can still see the scenes now where blood was poured out of buckets as the rest of us pupils walked past on our way to our own classes. Not an especially rural area but a few farming families. The rural studies teacher responsible for this was one of the most respected teachers in the whole school and very popular. The don't do it any longer - because the field the animals lived in is now a sports centre and car park

 

If I was a parent I would object if I had not been informed that this was going to happen - so that I could explain to my child in the way I felt it should be explained. But I would welcome the children understanding how exactly 'lamb' or 'pork' comes to be on the table, and what animals 'lamb' and 'pork' come from, i.e. what it means to eat meat.

 

Funnily enough the first animal I stopped eating was lamb - aaged about 12 years. It was because of a school trip to Wales where we, obviously, saw lots of lambs in the field, and as Sproggie, it 'clicked' what the lamb on my plate actually was and it was the start of a whole new consciousness.

 

An ill-considered article that completely misses the real stories - like hate campaigns, and the challenges of being a teacher in the modern-day world.

[blackmagic]

I grew up knowing where meat came from and I accepted it.

 

My grandfather had chickens and slaughtered them for eating. We couldn't afford chicken otherwise. I watched my grandmother boil up all the scraps for their feed, I watched them scrape about in their runs, I watched my gran pluck a chicken and knew when one appeared on the diner table exactly where it had come from.

 

The local slaughter house was over the wall from the children's play park. We used to sit on the wall and watch the cows being unloaded from the cattle lorries and herded into the slaughterhouse. We knew why they were there.

 

The animal carcasses were brought into the butcher's shop and hung on big hooks. The blood dripped down onto the sawdust on the floor.

 

I grew up with all theses things as part of normal life.

 

I now live in a rural area where the gamekeepers go out stalking the deer. Their children go out with them from an early age and the teachers have commented on how these children have a different attitude to those who only see meat ready cut and ready for cooking.

 

My nephew stopped eating meat when he was two years old, the day he asked where the meat on his plate came from and related it to the cuddly lambs and cows in his story books. His reaction to that information was ' That's horrible'. His younger brother had no such qualms.

 

However, what did upset me greatly was that, at high school, the biology class killed frogs and dissected them up. For that reason I would not take biology as a subject.

 

Killing animals to eat them had a purpose, killing frogs did not.

[mum24dog]

An animal was reared at a school and slaughtered for meat and people were upset about it - and what exactly?

 

Isn't that pretty normal?

 

So many people live in a sanitised bubble and never come into contact with the realities of life that I'm not surprised it came as a shock to some of them.

 

I live in a semi rural environment and farming is part of the community. When my children were at primary school they used to walk past the parish priest's garden on the way into school where he raised a couple of lambs each year. They got to know them but accepted it as inevitable that one day they would be gone to be slaughtered and returned for the priest's freezer.

 

Pam

[cycas]

However, what did upset me greatly was that, at high school, the biology class killed frogs and dissected them up. For that reason I would not take biology as a subject.

 

Killing animals to eat them had a purpose, killing frogs did not.

 

Hmm, not sure about that. To learn about the internal biology of animals properly to the point where you can become a vet, or a doctor, or a scientist that produces breakthrough new technology that lets people walk again for example - all big important jobs that we need people to do - you need to start by chopping up dead animals which are preferably preserved and not decaying or liable to carry disease. Dead animals have to come from somewhere, and I think learning is quite important.

 

There is an argument that many children need the better understanding of biology that they will get from carrying out one or two dissections in a lifetime, more than they need a lamb chop once a week.

 

So many people live in a sanitised bubble and never come into contact with the realities of life that I'm not surprised it came as a shock to some of them.

If you re-read my original post about this, I give some examples of situations where eating 'known' animals is not seen as normal. I take your point, having grown up and living in the country myself, but I don't agree that disliking the idea of eating a known animal is necessarily always unnatural, or the product of living in a 'sanitised bubble'. For that matter, I have known farmers who were quite able to include some members of a species mentally in their group of 'friends' who are retained as pets well after any commercial or food producing reason was gone, but at the same time would take other animals of the same species to be slaughtered....

 

What I'm trying to get at here is that our relationships with animals, including food species, are kind of complex. I am not sure there is a simple right answer here.

Edited April 8, 2010 by cycas