Teenager refuses to kill her chicken for a class project

[Cindiloohoo]

It is weird that a school would use THIS as a project. However, in the article, the idea that they should only live about 6 months maximum...would be about right for a Cornish, but they make it sound horrible. Talking about bloody clothes and blood on kids faces and this being animal cruelty..is just going a bit too far. Parental permission should have been obtained. Sounds like both sides were a bit screwy. Good for the girl for not going against her conscience either way.

 

[teach1rusl]

I think a class like that could be very beneficial (learning about where your food comes from). A teacher could "describe" how a chicken is killed/processed, but hands-on experiences are much more practical/memorable. However, I'm baffled that permission slips/parent awareness of what was going to be involved was not required. As a parent, I would be angry that I wasn't informed so that I could make a choice with my child when it came to choosing classes. I would think killing a live animal for just about any non-hunter or farmer would/could be very tramatic, and I can definitely see how some of the kids would grow attached. Actually, I'm surprised more students didn't "revolt."

 

[Ema]

unbelievable!!!!!!! good for her.

on another note nothing surprises me about schools anymore, when my oldest son was 7 the school sent out forms for the parents to sign stating on the form they were taking a school field trip to a farm. We all thought it was great seeing it would take the kids out of the city (i lived in a bid city back then) but after school my son came home and looked distraught, and refused to talk about his school trip and when he saw the roast I made for dinner he freaked out.

I later found out they called it a farm to avoid issues with parents etc, and took the kids to a slaughter house, my son and his classmates were made to watch as cows were slaughtered right in front of them and then processed. HE told me he looked away and his teacher told him that if he didn't watch he would fail his quiz later.

we all raised a big stink about it, the teacher was suspended from his job for 2 weeks. But I took my kid our of that school and I wasn't the only one!!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
Given the website that story is hosted on and the fact that the editor "Stephanie Feldstein is a Change.org Editor who has been part of the animal welfare and rescue community for over a decade, and most recently worked for an environmental organization. " leads me to believe that we are not being given all of the facts here.

What did the girl think she was signing up for when she chose the Animal Science and Food Production Class?

 

[Clay Valley Farmer]

Don't know, harvesting an animal for food is a far more natural and useful skill than many of the other things taught in school... Memorizing isotopes of elements on the periodic table that don't exist except briefly in a laboritory partical accelerator has done little for me.

Agree though no one should be forced into it in a main stream grade school situation. Standing up to the system is good too as long as she can back up her argument. Thats a life skill in and of it's self.

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

I think its great they did that for school, but not informing the parents or students beforehand... I dont the way they did it was the right way to teach how to process a chicken.

 

[Ferrret]

I've heard of classes like this before and I don't see the problem with it if a student voluntarily takes the class with parent permission. Many high schools allow you to have a choice of elective courses.

I don't agree with the girls actions. Classes give a syllabus of events so she should have known that she would be raising a chicken and killing it. Even through word of mouth she should have known. She had plenty of time to object to the course of action, give reason why she did not want to participate, or even change classes.
I have doubts about the facts in that article concerning the parents and students being uninformed of what was going to happen. I also don't think the students were made to spend all day coated in blood, given no chance to clean up.

High school students should understand that the chicken on their plates comes from animals, but this was nothing short of a lesson in animal cruelty. The students were taught that killing is "processing," without any lessons in the animal's ability to feel pain, from a man who apparently thinks chickens need to be starved for days before slaughter and that they are "not meant to live more than six months."

I stopped reading right about there.

I don't see it as wrong to have students take part in a class where they have the option of killing their food. The students were not forced into killing the birds, as stated in the article, but they did have to pluck and clean them. Too many kids are growing up not connecting the idea of a chicken dinner and an actual chicken.​

 

[Urbanfarmerkc]

I disagree with almost all the posts here. The girl was told this was a process by which she would be learning to raise and process chickens. The point of the class was to teach children the responsibilities of taking an animal's life so that we can eat it. It seems to me that most people have lost sight of the main issue. WE KILL ANIMALS FOR FOOD! Do you really think we don't need to know and experience what that is like?

I have NO problem with vegetarians. In fact, if more people were forced to do the process of killing to get food I truly believe there would be more of them! We as a nation have completely lost sight of what it means to eat meat. I believe that is a shame.

As far as this particular girl. If I were her parents, I'd probably have told her what I just did in this post but I would have let her make her own decision. As for the school. Don't blame them for doing what everyone who eats meat should be forced to do. They need to be commended for EDUCATING children. That is so seldom done in our country these days.

Dave

 

[Mattemma]

Killing would be the hard part especially if the kids hatched and raised the hens,BUT if you want to learn how to raise and eat your hens then this would be a useful class. I know my kids could not kill what they raise,or even eat our hens if I did the deed.

I watched hens being killed and processed and then we had them for dinner that night.This was in a small hungarian village where raising and eating your animals was the norm.

The slaughter house was way out of line. I can't even watch those kill videos online.I would be upset if my kids were made to watch that.

I would be ok with my kids declining to kill a frog if they were not given an option to opt out.Signing up for a class knowing you were going to kill what you raise...well I would want my kid to follow through.You shouldn't go into this type of calss knowing you will not be able to do what is required. Plucking and cleaning was easy.I found the killing part to be the hardest.

Maybe the girl signed up for the class with the intent of saving the hen she raised. We saved a rabbit from becoming dog food,and a few mice from snakes. Again,a useful class.

Lets see them raise and kill a pig for class.Ugh,now that was an all day affair with the killing being the hardest.I can clean out guts and render fat,but forget killing!

 

[greeneggsandham]

I took animal science some 19 years ago in HS. It was clearing written out what we would be doing in the class. We processed turkeys for Thanksgiving. There were 12 kids in my class and I was one of three girls. When the time came the other two decided that is was to gross to do and took an F for the class. I was somewhat grossed out at first, but we also didn't have to kill the turkeys our AG teacher did that. We just handled everything else and all funds from selling the turkeys helped with our FFA trips.

I can understand that the girl was upset, but there had to of been somewhere in the description of the class that pointed to processing the chickens. I don't think the teacher would just up and say "ok now that we raised these chickens its time to kill them." I could be wrong, but then that would open up that teacher and possibly the school to be in trouble.