Teacher showing photos to kids of victorian dead children - slightly disturbing

I think this is right, there needs to be a balance struck.

There is a jarring mismatch between some styles of parenting and allowing early access to tech smartphone, iPad etc. DC then have the worst of all worlds, internet at their fingertips and lack of life skills or sense. They are ill equipped emotionally to process things.

The original children’s fairy tales could be quite gruesome in parts to help process difficult human ideas and emotions through magical stories, then came the sanitised versions.

Some of the old education films were quiet (edited to say quite scary not quiet!) . They were possibly too effective when you are left with a life long fear of matches!

The abortion film seems like gruesome propaganda rather than education, I’m glad I didn’t see it. The birth video mentioned upthread was eye opening enough.

i’ve not read the while thread. Not sure if OP will be going back after replying constantly last night and then saying good night.

Firstly, the teacher is doing a fantastic job of your child is coming home from school and discussing the topic. Ask your daughter what was the aim of the other lessons yesterday. Probably get a shrug.

Secondly, it sounds like the teacher was discussing social history regarding the Industrial Revolution. Probably did show some kids in the mills or begging on the streets of London. But they’re the working class, how do you depict the lower middle class of that century?

Photographs were a real luxury. Sure the upper classes probably had photos taken regularly. But the lower middle classes would have only had them taken for real special occasions. Unfortunately one of those occasions may have been when a young child died.

I think I’ve seen a photo with mum, dad and three dead children. Poor parents. Think back then that the other alive children would have participated in ‘wakes’ and been around death.

It’s not too dissimilar to parents now taking photographs of their babies who are born sleeping. I have a friend who used to post every year of her baby who was born sleeping.

But, it’s a way for the teacher to peek the kids interest. Yes they could have shown a bit of Oliver the twist but most kids would have already had that stereotype/knowledge of that era. Most kids have a Victorian dress up day in primary school. I guess she could have shown pictures of the diseases/illnesses/medication treatments to peak the kids interests? I definitely remember a lesson in primary school on historical dentistry.

Meh.The 13/14 yr olds i t.a for saw pics of hangings the other day.Its part of history and it was relevant to the subject matter.

And me.

I always thought my own DM was a bit pushy when it came to school but there’s no way she’d have any idea about what I saw in a specific Yr 9 history class, what I was supposed to have seen instead and what all my class mates thought of it.

Anyway, I’m in my thirties now and distinctly remember a primary school trip to the local church graveyard to read the dates on graves and identify any epidemics that may have hit the village. Social history can be grim, but it’s more engaging for most kids than photos of a large bridge.

That would upset me to see-as a child and an adult. I think it’s different telling them about it to actually showing them. I wouldn’t be happy about this either.

And several hospitals have cold cots, don’t they, so parents can hold their baby? I have no idea if I’d want that, but I absolutely empathise and don’t think it’s weird.

A friend of mine died and her dc were told they could say goodbye in the morgue. One did, one didn’t. The one who did said she’d kissed her mum’s cheek and it was cold (obviously, she’d been kept in the refrigerated drawer). She was year 8 at the time.

It’s very subjective, I think some parents would not allow this. It used to be quite common to have bodies laid in the church before the funeral ceremony or at home, open coffin, I kissed my dead aunt’s face, she died when I was about ten, I was close to her. Bit odd but didn’t cause me to lose sleep. Again, it’s very subjective, I imagine most parents these days might avoid this.

Find me some contemporary evidence that this is what they did, as opposed to someone online claiming that a particular sitter in a photograph is dead.

to show those images? ok. To ONLY show those images? a missed opportunity.

Here is a sensible and reputable debunking of most of the claimed 'Victorian death photos'. Worth a read. It is not 'part of social history ' as some up-thread are claiming - or if it is, it's primarily about how misinformation spreads in the age of mass media.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victorian-post-mortem-photographs

We have a Paris monument topic in year 8. It includes the Catacombs and a YouTube video which describes the dead bodies falling on the street when the wall of a cemetery collapsed. It also contains pictures of the skulls (some have obvious holes, whether as cause of death or from being moved) and one video even describes how the locals would scrape off the ’wax’ which grew on dead bodies to use in the creation of candles, very desperate times. Cultural knowledge!

I wouldn't have a problem at all. But then I like weird shit.

You can't pose a dead body easily because it's a dead weight

Yes, and no. If you were not in a stinking hot country like I am, where we now have refrigeration for bodies but did not back then, you could certainly wait for rigor to pass, which is quite quick, and then it’s easy to dress, pose etc. They are certainly dead weights, but if you look at many photos, they are leaning and ‘posed’ in a supportive way as you could easily do. I’ve seen many bodies and could easily pose them for photos as the Victorians did.

Are you a teacher at the school? Of History?

Most of these photos have been debunked. You can't pose a dead body easily because it's a dead weight. Most of the claimed 'death' photos are based on modern misinterpretation of the conditions of photography at the time- the long exposure meant that postural stands were needed to help the subjects keep still. This is documented in contemporary treatises on photography. You can't use a postural stand to prop up a body, it's not strong enough.
Likewise painted eyes - sitters eyes were often captured as closed due to blinkjng and exposure length. So they painted open eyes on top.

OP, i would have a problem with this as she's presenting something that's largely an internet urban myth as fact. There is no evidence that Victorians posed dead bodies as if living - it isn't possible.
There are credible photos of bodies on biers, in coffins, on death beds. These are usually obviously what they are.

I imagine teachers in 2125 will be teaching fascinated and incredulous children about gender reveal parties

Definitely complain to the teacher. It’s happening all over schools now where they will will push traumatic things onto kids

How on earth is this traumatic though? It’s a fascinating period in history and I see how it fits with the theme. Rapid industrial progress, shift from country to city, use of child labour as labour shortages for creased industry, higher mortality rates when you cram people together in cities, and this led to a rapid shift in funerary rites. Plus Yr9 students are absolute arseholes in the main and this will get their attention at the outset to get involved in the rest of the content😁.

How these pictures are disturbing I don’t know. They are just dead people being posed as photography was in its infancy and expensive so it was the only ‘pictorial’ memory a family would ever have, so posing them life-like seemed more sensible to them.

I think any discomfort stems from the weird distance people put between themselves and death these days. In that time it was a normal and expected part of life. We had an old family Bible (called that, but was actually a diary), and it detailed diphtheria outbreaks and so forth. Stuffing sulfur coated rags down kids throats in a desperate attempt to save kids (often rupturing the gullet and causing a painful death accordingly instead). I’m in a hot country so getting people in the ground pronto was of utmost importance. The Bible detailed the parents going off to bury a child, to come home to find another one or two dead. Meanwhile well-meaning neighbours had been knocking up child coffins in advance, left, right and centre. They sat with death as ‘normal’. They didn’t teach 14yo kids to be horrified/unsettled etc by it. That’s a relatively new thing and no one is doing kids any favours by complaining about Victorian death photos🤦‍♀️.

I was teaching mine about mummification and different things from reception age, so they thought it all fascinating and normal. They didn’t burst into tears and have child breakdowns. We used to take them to a museum that had a good collection of Victorian death photos and they were always fascinated, no harm done! It’s in no way traumatic unless YOU have pushed that to not your child.

Are you actually unable to sleep because of this OP? The teacher is right, it was completely normal to the Victorians to have photos of their dead relatives, it is history OP.

Many schools teach the holocaust in Yr 9. I can assure you the pictures children see from this topic are far worse than any Victorian death photographs. Should Year 9 children be protected from these as well?

The holocaust is taught in Year 9 to ensure that even those children who don’t study History for a GCSE learn about this important topic.

History is not pretty and Year 9 pupils should be allowed to see this.

OP, if you have such strong feelings about this history lesson maybe you could do better? There’s a shortage of teachers (it’s actually the retention of experienced teachers - I wonder why) so why not retrain?

@Mothership4two you comment that it might be the first image of a dead body they have ever seen, do you not think they might have seen a picture of the dead pope that has been beamed to the world all week

I didn't realise it was particularly unusual until I was much much older. But actually it was just a regular state school.

Anyone else just gone down a rabbit hole of Victorian death photography? Fascinating

I can see the relevance in talking about attitudes to children, mortality rates etc at the time but no need to show the photos.

I assume as well as the inventions etc the teacher also wanted to show a window into the social history and how people actually lived day to day. High child mortality was a large part of life then.

IMO the social history bit is much more interesting than learning about inventions because it brings history alive.

Many people have explained to you that there is nothing wrong with this in a history lesson at this age. You continue to say well there must be more relevant things to show. You are not in charge of these lessons. You don't like the teacher and this is leading you to get over involved looking for things to be annoyed about.

A huge amount of the industrial revolution was about health and death. Children who would have had jobs like collecting eggs and washing apples were suddenly sent down mines and put in factories.

Jon snow's intervention in to stop a cholera outbreak was the beginning of epidemiology.

The London Necropolis Railway is interesting.