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

I watched a video of penguins rotating in a huddle with my class last week. I can’t remember how it came up and I’m sure it isn’t relevant to anything I’m teaching at the moment. We all found it pretty interesting though.

There is no way they will be teaching the Industrial Revolution without looking at Victorian society in general. I would have found their attitudes towards death very interesting at this age. You clearly found the Industrial Revolution fascinating but others would find other things about the Victorian era interesting.

People are lining the streets to take photos of the deceased pope in his coffin. Just saying!

Jesus Christ. They probably spent five mins looking at the picture with a bit of context around it. Do you usually blindly accept everything your child says as gospel? You know they exaggerate? Your response is completely disproportionate.

Part of learning History is evaluating sources to see what we can learn about the time. These photographs could have been a source. Students need to see both the broad base, and the zoom in on a small part of History because both skills are useful.

I guarantee they’ve seen worse online. If you’re seriously that affected by such a trivial non issue I would suggest you get them therapy before they ever visit a war museum

Bah! I would have been fascinated by this as a child, not even remotely disturbing.

Just to clarify that your thread title 'Teacher showing photos to kids of victorian dead children, slightly disturbing' Isn't actually the problem you have? You began your thread saying it was disturbing to you and then based on posters respo ses seem to have veered more into not covering the actual topic. How recently was this lesson? Could the teacher move on to the inventions in another lesson?

When you say the teacher has form for this do you mean showing "disturbing" images or not covering the curriculum?

If your child has been upset by the images then you should let the teacher know, I would always give children the option to sit out of upsetting content or give them a warning at first. I can imagine that some children might be upset by these photos, especially those who have had a recent berevement or lost a sibling. If it is about curriculum coverage then take a look through you child's book with a copy of the curriculum, figure out what hasn't been covered and then maybe approach the subject lead or head of year with your concerns. Probably best to be really clear about what the issue is so you don't come across as having a grudge.

What kind of hellish hard right education was that? A particularly bonkers convent school? Who shows explicit anti-abortion peopaganda footage to teens?

I remember when we learned about the slave trade in year 8 and the teacher showed us a photo of the people standing to be sold at an auction. And how some had pieces of rope inserted into their bottoms to hide the fact they had dysentry. I couldn't believe any of it. That people could actually be sold, that they were taken from their homes, that they'd had rope in their bottoms. I remember asking the teacher if it was really true... And then went home and vomited and cried. I was massively naive at that age and I can imagine how certain things can make some children respond in a more emotional way than others.

I also remember watching a video of dead baby foetuses following an abortion and the baby making a crying expression in an ultrasound as the abortion began to take place. This was year 10 though so I think I was more resilient but it still makes me feel sad when I think about those images.

Maybe it was seeing the visual evidence but it's all still very vivid in my mind 20+ years later. It might have been the teachers were very good too.. because really, I don't think I remember that much (specific content) from other lessons. That said, I didn't actually like it ie. the strong negative feelings evoked by the imagery. But maybe that's the point too...

There are a shortfall of 6500 teachers in the uk. Maybe you should become a history teacher yourself?

I'm more astonished that a y9 kid accurately described a whole lesson to you.

Just a few thoughts.

I think this would be a really great way to engage kids that age with the subject of infant mortality, public health etc - massive issues as the industrialisation of Britain took off

Also you only have your DC’s version of this. There’s probably more context.

You / they clearly have had issues with this teacher beforehand. Could this be clouding your judgement?

Anyway, glad the thread’s been cathartic for you and you have Slept like a log.

Having studied the Industrial Revolution at school in history I would say it’s possibly the dullest subject ever. I wish my teacher had showed us pictures of interesting social history like this not the ruddy spinning jenny.

What is disturbing about an open cask? Unless there's some dreadful mutilation/damage to the body, why not?

Absolutely, this is a really relevant and interesting part of what they are learning. The images aren't particularly disturbing or anything, but it is an interesting reflection as to the values of society at the time and of course the very significant development of cameras and photography. I really can't understand why you are unhappy in any way about it.

I wish people would stop saying times have changed and it's creepy now. There will be people reading this whose post-mortem photos of their baby are all they have. It is commonly done now and every large hospital I've worked in has had a specialised photographer who does it.

This

No you’re wrong. I’m 68 and I can remember being shown pictures of the holocaust.
starving men and women looking like skeletons, and hundreds of dead bodies piled up on top of each other.
I was also in year 9 at the time and it affected me badly.
I remember telling my parents about what we had learned and was surprised that of course they already knew about it.
I couldn’t believe that people could do this to other human beings and couldn’t get it out of my head for months.
I doubt that seeing pictures of posed dead children would have had such an impact on me.

This teacher has form by the way. A lot of it.

You still haven't explained what you mean by this.

@whyiwonderwhy I think the Victorian death photos are quite sweet actually- there is nothing there that is gruesome, especially for year 9. I also don't see how it's any worse than year 3's who learn about the Egyptians and the embalming process for mummies, my 7 year old could tell me about the post death organ removal in detail! And any museums we visit invariable have a skeleton or two, but the kids just find it interesting. Honestly I think it's kind of healthy to not make (natural) death too much of a taboo subject, lots of those pupils will lose family members during childhood and might need help processing it.

Photos like this were often the only time a family would have a photo taken.

It wasn’t that unusual and whilst it now seems creepy it’s a good way of visually explaining how times and attitudes have changed.

Even on quite a superficial level, it is obvious to teach child labour to youngsters if you’re covering the Industrial Revolution, and it is hard to cover Victorian child labour without at least touching on child welfare and child mortality.

The republic of suffering is excellent!

There's also important city and transportation design connected with the way Death was treated - the London Necropolis - which could be tied into a trip to one of the major cemeteries, infant mortality (leading into statistics), improvements in public health, housing, social care, medicine, could be linked to their English Literature text (Jekyll & Hyde, Dickens, Frankenstein), Christian eschatology, Law, comparative religion for things such as cremation; this could quite easily become a very effectively integrated curriculum, starting off from the fact that people died and people took photographs of them.

It's important for them to learn that it wasn't all Brunel, Box Tunnel and the Crystal Palace.