It is not unusual for our children to come home with their backpacks overflowing with homework assignments to complete and projects to create. But what would you think and how would you feel if you found this assignment in your young child’s school bag:
“You’ve just turned 18. You’ve decided to end your life. Your decision is definitive. In a final surge you decide to put in words the reason behind your decision. In the style of a self-portrait, you describe the disgust you have for yourself. Your text will retrace certain events in your life at the origin of these feelings.”
In the town of Montmoreau-Saint-Cybard, Southwestern France, an unamed teacher handed out this homework note to his 13- and 14-year-old students at the collège Antoine-Delafont.
The Telegraph reports the French teacher has been suspended after the local school authority found out about the assignment and after a group of outraged parents complained in an anonymous letter to the school, saying they were horrified their children were given the assignment.
It was further reported in The Telegraph that the president of the FCPE parents’ union in Montmoreau, Christophe Clément, said such a subject is “practically inciting (pupils) to commit suicide.”
“Jean-Marie Renault, the local education authority head, said the teacher had been officially notified of his suspension, adding: ‘Telling a pupil that he is about to end his life and that he must recount it appears troubling to us.’”
“Geneviève Fioraso, France’s higher education minister, waded in, saying: ‘If the topic was launched in this way, without accompaniment, without context, it’s dangerous.’”
However, in spite of the flurry of disapproval surrounding this unique and controversial story, a large group of parents, students, and fellow colleagues have come together in support of this teacher’s actions, asking for the reinstatement of this beloved teacher into the school system.
One parent asks, “What do you think they talk about in the playground? The images they see on TV are far more shocking.”
Another parent said, “Suicide is part of daily life. Perhaps the teacher wished to raise their awareness of the issue.”
The group consensus within the circle of supporters was that the media coverage had been “over the top and inappropriate,” noting that the subject had “not shocked” pupils and it had been “well presented” by the teacher.
Is it likely that an assignment like this could or would actually cause a young mind to contemplate suicide?
Or could an assignment like this provide a young mind an opportunity to explore and express a part of themselves that is not touched upon in the day-to-day experiences of their lives?
If someone truly were on the edge of ending life as we know it to be in this human experience, what insights and truth might that person feel more inclined to share in the absence of suffering the consequences of being judged or ridiculed or ignored?
Are we limiting the fullest expressions of our children, and ourselves, by restricting what we naturally feel drawn to do – express who we are? Even when that expression may not be what we expect or want to hear?
Where does an assignment like this invite us to go?
And why do we fear going there?
In the book When Everything Changes, Change Everything, we are taught how our minds draw upon and utilize the past data of our lives to help form the basis of our current reality. And the way we experience life – reality – will depend upon what type of data we are relying upon. Perhaps “retracing the events in a child’s life and the origins of their feelings,” as this teacher invited these students to do, will provide to these children at a very tender age an opportunity to understand more fully what source, or data, their thoughts and beliefs are foundationed upon…which would lead them to an understanding of why they might hold any feelings of “disgust” for themselves…which would then present an opportunity to change their thoughts, change their perspectives, and change their beliefs about who they are, thus altering the way in which they experience all of life.
This type of exploration would serve to remind us that speaking our truth about who we are is not something to be reserved for the end of our lives. Maybe a child’s limited idea about who they are or any harsh judgments they have placed upon themselves could be transformed into a remembrance and realization of their own significance and purpose in the world within the parameters of one simple yet profound exercise.
Why would we want to deny anyone that opportunity?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)