The Duck Project

Several years ago, the class of about a dozen special needs students I worked with, participated in “The Duck Project.” “The Duck Project” was much like “The Egg Project”, where students are required to carry an egg around and take care of it, making sure it isn’t neglected or broken, with the intention of giving the chosen students the responsibility of looking after something that depends on them for survival.

Only with “The Duck Project” each student was given a duckling, a beautiful, fluffy baby, to take care of for two weeks after which time the ducklings were returned to the duck farm and left to grow up and become someone’s dinner. How lovely though, that for a brief time, the students would have the opportunity to take care of a living, breathing thing whose life depended on them. A fine life lesson for young teens? A taste of reality maybe?

It was an absolutely dreadful idea from the start – baby ducks, although cute as can be, stink after only a short time in an enclosed pen (where they were kept during school hours, a much preferred location, I am sure to the boxes they were kept in while being transported to and from school and maybe longer.) A letter and a consent form explaining the purpose of the project went home but accommodations weren't checked out. I believe though, most of the ducklings were cared for appropriately.

Days passed and the ducks grew rapidly. They got bigger, noisier, smellier and less cute. The kids lost interest quickly because looking after them was hard and unrewarding work. Ducklings don’t give a lot back. The peeping was continuous, tempers flared and everyone was getting pretty edgy. By the time the ducklings and students had been together through a weekend, everyone, including the ducklings I’m sure, wished that the project would end. And for one it did, very abruptly.

About midway through week two, a previously healthy duckling died overnight at the student’s home. The student came to school and told the teacher she didn’t have a duckling anymore. I wasn’t privy to that conversation and I don’t know the details which were never shared with the rest of the staff working in that classroom. However, I do know the ducklings were returned to the duck farm that day and the dead duckling was never acknowledged. Questions from the other students went unanswered. It was as though the poor duckling never existed. Death, especially suspicious death, apparently was a taboo subject, not to be included in this life lesson. As classroom assistants, we were told not to discuss it.

Weeks later however, a group of the students approached me and asked me if I remembered xxx’s baby duck and wanted to know what happened to it. I told them it died and they asked why. I said I didn’t know. One said she’d heard that it was strangled and another said it got stepped on. One of the boys told them the family ate it? Someone else said it drowned? They all knew it was dead but my goodness, how rumours grow when questions aren’t answered!

They wanted to know where it was, what happened to its body? Again, I didn’t know. Their concern, empathy and sorrow were evident. One said it was wrong to just forget the duck like it was nothing and started to cry. I told them it was okay to be sad and that it made me sad too.

The students had expressed my thoughts precisely. The fuss at the beginning of the project suggested that the ducklings should be personified and treated like part of the family, like darling baby cousins coming for a visit, and yet when this duckling died, there was no mourning, no funeral, and no acknowledgement of sadness and grief even though everyone was visibly upset. All of the ducklings were just gone.

Children require answers so they can make sense of their world. Tragedy and death are not pleasant topics but questions need to be answered in an honest way. Information doesn’t have to be repetitive, elaborate, or sensational – just informative at the level of the kids’ questions and understanding. So much angst could have been prevented after "The Duck Project" if only the kids’ feelings had been considered. Tragedy happens and when it does, kids hear about it. They want mostly to be reassured but often don’t have the words to express their needs. It is important to find the time to listen and to share information at their comfort level so fears can be addressed and their rampant imaginings can be put to rest.