Teacher suspended over suicide essays
2012-12-10 22:20
Bordeaux - A French teacher who has been accused of asking
her students to write an essay in which they imagined themselves as a suicidal
teenager has been suspended pending an investigation, education officials said
on Monday.
The teacher, who works at the Montmoreau-Saint-Cybard secondary
school in the Charente region of western France, will discover next week if she
is to face disciplinary action following an outcry among parents over a
composition she reportedly set for her class of 13- and 14-year-olds.
According to local newspaper La Charente Libre, the
teacher reportedly asked the pupils to imagine themselves as an 18-year-old who
had taken an irrevocable decision to end his or her life.
"You decided at the last minute to explain your
reasons," she was quoted as instructing them. "Drawing a
self-portrait, you will describe your self-disgust. Your text will go over the
events in your life that created this feeling."
The teacher was suspended following an anonymous letter
from parents which asked: "What will be the next subject - how do you feel
when you shoot up?"
Jean-Marie Renault, the academic director of the Charente
region, confirmed the teacher had been suspended and would be asked to explain
what she was trying to do.
"If it is true that the question of suicide was
posed in the terms reported, one could only be surprised, to say the
least," he told AFP.
A pupil in the class said the incident had been blown out
of proportion.
Contacted by AFP, she said the teacher had simply asked
the students to "imagine that we did not feel well".
