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

Do you think this also may have come about partly due to the pope dying and people taking photos and the discussion on that, so showing the differences and similarities to today.

Yeah morticians have debunked this - dead weight isn't something you can 'prop up' from behind a curtain, and cetainly not with a flimsy wooden frame. Adult corpses especially are heavy and unwieldy. Some of them are dead, but only the 'lounging' ones, and more likely children and babies as their bodies are lighter. All fascinating stuff! VIctorian death practises are a big interest of mine

@whyiwonderwhy, it doesn't seem that you have really taken in the many explanations of why this could have been a powerful lens to begin a discussion about all the other things which, in your estimation, were the more "important bits" of this period. Instead, you agree only with people who entirely affirm your opinion. Have you read books like historian (and Harvard President) Drew Faust's This Republic of Suffering, which won a Pulitzer Prize? Or Tom Laqueur's, Helen Fawcett Professor of History at Princeton's book, The Work of the Dead? I don't think you are understanding how powerful this topic is to understand this whole period. And what a compelling way it offers to being a broader discussion.

To be fair, i think it has potentially a place in history class, but one on victorian attitudes to death, which is interesting in itself, and not in the industrial revolution class. So I sort of agree with you....

Thank you! I don’t find either practice odd or disturbing. I was just pointing out that the victorians were no different than modern folk.

It's all interlinked - you can't teach the Industrial Revolution properly without looking at society at the time, and this is part of it.

Contextualisation is vital to developing the level of understanding required.

And understanding the Victorians is also part of the English GCSE - it's impossible to analyse at 19th century literature effectively without it - including attitudes to death. The subjects interlink. Holistic education.

But hey, teachers clearly have no clue what they are doing, or why. They just chuck in anything they fancy.

if it makes you feel any better, OP, a lot of the viral victorian 'death photography' examples are actually photos of live people misrepresented as dead. if the person is sat up or stood with no or minimal support, they're undoubtedly alive. a dead body is extremely floppy and requires a great deal of strength to be held up.

You can’t possibly know what the kids in the class all like/ find interesting. By all means ask the teacher why the photographs were shown, but you clearly already have an agenda with this member of staff anyway so you do need to step back a bit and consider what exactly your concerns are.

Also, consider that if you do make a fuss, your kids might be less likely to talk to you about lesson content in future, in case you kick off.

Yes, we were 14 before that started, along with Stalin and the gulags. That was about the right age.

Did the OP actually attend this lesson? I have no idea how they have elaborated so clearly on what the focus was, maybe actually it’s all the child paid attention to because they were swept away by it!

True, and it's an odd thing to show if the class was about the industrial revolution, but not in itself if talking about victoriana. I remember watching Caesusescu's execution on the news with my dad when I was 12, no lasting scars.

I agree @whyiwonderwhy it's weird.

And you are better placed to know that than the trained professional who has a history degree, a teaching qualification, and literally does this for a living?

Tell me, op, how would you engage a classroom full of year 9s - and what, exactly, would be the reasoning behind your decision?

I'm a teacher, although now SLT so not teaching. A little shock and awe is FANTASTIC for engagement and I can guarantee they won't forget any of this lesson, of which the photos will only be a small part, with the wider, important context given too. As someone who has taught about the Industrial Revolution I can promise you teens engage far more with the human aspect than the engineering. A good teacher balances both and uses what interests them (and teens are macabre) to support their engagement in the bits that don't.

Thankfully parents don't set the curriculum, or plan lessons - because you clearly don't understand how to capture the attention of 30 teenagers, and keep it.

Your child learnt something today, and was interested enough to tell you about it.

And you think that's wrong. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I, on the other hand, think that teacher has done a great job in piquing their interest in the era with a 😮🤯 moment - which they'll take forward into the rest of the module.

I know it's a bit of a shocker, but teachers generally know what they are doing.

Hmm. I am coming around to your POV.

I originally thought your AIBU was concern about young teens seeing pictures of dead people. But I am now getting the message that you feel the subject is being taught in a way that ignores the important aspects of that period in favour of portraying stranger offshoots.

I don’t see the validity either unless that was the actual subject in the lessons- and the justification from people responding seems weak. The topic was the industrial revolution, not Victorian attitudes to death. It wasn’t about specifically the large mortality rate, but about progress. I also would wonder why this was the sole focus of the lesson within this topic, as it seems whilst it could be a small footnote, the I distracts revolution doesn’t focus on death but progress. I’m sorry OP- you aren’t going to get many agreeing with you.

How do you know so much about all the kids in your kid's class? You're even more of a busybody than I thought. Do you allow your child some autonomy in her social sphere?