Page 4 | Teacher showing photos to kids of victorian dead children - slightly disturbing

whyiwonderwhy · 2025-04-25T22:51:21+00:00

I am finding this so disturbing I can't sleep! However I might be being oversensitive, who knows. It is the "but - WHY?" bit which is bothering me most. The lesson was about the industrial revolution, and the subject of photography came up, 2 of the earliest photos were shown to the class (13-14yo) and then....I wish I could say the teacher showed photos of some of the extraordinary engineering inventions of the day, or of busy streets, or China, or something wonderful and extraordinary...but no, the teacher showed 10 photos of dead children and talked about how the Victorians would photograph dead children as though they were still alive, with the rest of the family, in a commemorative way. I have seen some in the past (I didn't learn about it at school however) and they are moving and tragic and disturbing. Nothing else, just these photos. Just wondering...why? why would the teacher do this? Any ideas? This teacher has form by the way. A lot of it. But this has for some reason blindsided me.

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 22:02

Ruthietuthie · 28/04/2025 16:53

@whyiwonderwhy, I am originally from the UK, but now live in the US and work at a university there. The Research Institute I am part of is in the US. We are funded by the university - so by the university's endowment and federal funding, by tuition, and by grant-funding, in our case, by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the National Science Foundation. (Although with Trump in power that is changing). We also have some funding from private organizations, such as the Mellon Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. For example, next year we will have funding from the Toyoto Foundation for a project that compares the way various Asian societies are preparing for the demographic tipping point that the World Health Organization calls "Peak Death" (where a large long-lived elderly population combined with a low birth rate means a society suddenly faces more death than ever before).
But I am also affiliated with a UK example, The Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. https://www.bath.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-for-death-society/
You can take a look at their current research projects and their funding sources here:
https://www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/current-centre-for-death-society-research-projects/

Edited

Thanks for this, it is helpful. When you say "with trump in power that is changing" do you mean the analyses being done currently by the DOGE, and the review into where education funding is going generally, or will there be specific cuts in relation to your area of research, and if so do you know why?

OP posts:

Friendlynortherner · 28/04/2025 22:01

nyancatdays · 28/04/2025 12:39

@Friendlynortherner I’m a nineteenth century historian. There are plenty of contemporary sources of these, especially from France and America - including adverts by commercial photographers who offered postmortem photography services, plus contemporary comment, often by the photographers themselves, on their methods of posing subjects, etc.

Discounting the Internet ones that are actually photographs of living people, there are plenty of examples where the subjects are posed explicitly as dead; and in America, it was especially common to depict the subject in a coffin or casket. There are probably more surviving examples of postmortem photography in American collections because the practice continued in frontier America for some time after it had passed its popularity in Europe (as documented by the folk historian Michael Lesy in the 1970s).

A lot of the actual early photographs themselves are difficult to obtain since they were types of physical (ie. non-negatives/not easily copy able) photography, such as cased daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes, commissioned for private mourning and often now held in private collections (however, I’ve copied an example below held in the Met, by Alphonse Le Blondel, a well known French studio photographer of the mid-1800s).

There is also a lot of academic work on this topic going back decades now. Obviously, much of it (and the links to sources) are in academic monographs and libraries difficult to access for non-scholars, but, just for a start, take a look at these open-access resources. The Patrizia Munforte article, the next to last link below, also discusses in depth the ambivalence of not knowing whether an image is a “true” postmortem photograph or not.

https://clements.umich.edu/exhibit/death-in-early-america/ - this resource from U of Michigan is especially good, with visual examples

https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/6241/1/6241.pdf - this article includes quotations from contemporary photographers on the practice

The Yale Review | Lili Hamlyn: "Camera Mortis"

Alphonse Le Blondel | [Postmortem] | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/114469/1/The%20Body%20of%20Ambivalence.%20The%20'Alive,%20Yet%20Dead'%20Portrait%20in%20the%20Nineteenth%20Century.pdf

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odbetd/ws/sendfile/send?accession=osu1144936478&disposition=inline

Edited

Thanks very.much, I'll read these. Im aware of the types of pictures involving coffins and death beds like the one you link- but what I'm specifically interested in, is, are there treatises that describe how to pose a dead subject as if living, rather than as if dead?
The images the OP is talking about are people that look living.

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:55

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:31

You do and you are

You refer to unnamed "other incidents" and that some supposed "high up" person, but not in the school, agreed with you and then moan that teacher didn't get sacked

You want this teacher gone and are reaching for a reason. You hoped we'd all agree so you felt justified in using this as a way to attack a teacher you have some personal beef with

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What you are saying is absolute nonsense and really quite dangerous and the fact that it is quite dangerous is the only reason I am bothering to reply to you. You seem to be suggesting that if someone reports concerns about a professional more than once, it means automatically that they have some personal beef/are reaching for a reason? If so you are wrong. In terms of "hoped we'd all agree", what I report and don't report in real life is to do with whether or not I think there is a concern which needs reporting. What you "all" think is not a factor at all for me. This thread was about me understanding what was going on, nothing to do with whether I should report or not.

The only thing which would stop me reporting something I felt really needed to be reported is if there were a possibility DC would suffer as a result - as I indicated in an earlier post - not whether or not you approved.

Could you go and bother someone else now on a different thread, with your made up accusations and personal insults?

OP posts:

Hercisback1 · 28/04/2025 21:45

Your post about this being traumatic is ridiculous. Have you ever watched horrible histories?!

Some children suffer real trauma, not seeing a photo is a maybe dead person.

You don't come across very well OP, a bit smug, think you know more than the teacher, when you're unaware of the reality of most 13/14yos. Your kid is a bit sensitive is the lesson for you.

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:43

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:32

points to all your posts
Maybe all of this

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My posts are not rude! Oh my goodness, I do quite despair! My posts are very straightforward and polite - the only time any sharpness has crept in has been in reaction to the insanely rude posts of other people!

OP posts:

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:41

nyancatdays · 28/04/2025 14:58

In the sciences, sometimes, though a research institute named after a big donor will not normally all be funded by the donor. It will usually be co-funded by a university department and keeps going on a mixture of central department/university and “soft money” (grant application) funds.

In the arts and humanities, not really. There are named libraries and named chairs (professorships) and PhD posts and so on, but they are usually just named for legacy or partial bequests, and the core funding to run them is normally from the university department itself. But it’s not really a thing for research institutes to be solely run by private funders. The costs dwarf many times what even most super-rich can afford.

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This isn't entirely true, as there are a large number of entities referred to as research institutes which are funded by individuals or companies. Also if you look at how universities get their funding, you will see that elements come from industry and charities - and if you look behind charity funding you will find individuals or "trusts" funded by individuals... When you say the costs dwarf even what super rich can afford, what sort of figures are you talking about for your research institute in one year, say? The main players in the billionaire world are big contributors to academic research, tis well known I thought.

Why is your research institute researching into 19C attitudes to death so significantly? And what research does it form part of - how societies through the ages see death?

OP posts:

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:32

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:29

Where have I been rude? Let me know and if I agree I will have it deleted. Again, HTH, HuffleMyPuffle.

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points to all your posts
Maybe all of this

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:31

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:25

Just absolute rubbish, and this applies to both your post and that of @Lyraloo
which you quoted. On Friday night I was blindsided and posted in an anonymous way to get some insights - which I now have, courtesy of some of the most ridiculous posts on this thread, ironically. There are no outing details here so how could this possibly be trying to get someone disciplined? And how could anonymous posters be useful "on my side"?! The accusations are just bizarre.

You come across as a real piece of work, nasty and spiteful! No I don't. And I am not.

Edited

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You do and you are

You refer to unnamed "other incidents" and that some supposed "high up" person, but not in the school, agreed with you and then moan that teacher didn't get sacked

You want this teacher gone and are reaching for a reason. You hoped we'd all agree so you felt justified in using this as a way to attack a teacher you have some personal beef with

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:31

Gingernan · 28/04/2025 15:54

Seems a cheap shot shock way of engaging the kids.
The Industrial revolution is an amazing period to study, so much more than this.

I agree

OP posts:

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:29

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:24

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No

You have been rude. PP hasn't

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Where have I been rude? Let me know and if I agree I will have it deleted. Again, HTH, HuffleMyPuffle.

OP posts:

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:25

ThriveAT · 28/04/2025 20:26

100% agree.

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Just absolute rubbish, and this applies to both your post and that of @Lyraloo
which you quoted. On Friday night I was blindsided and posted in an anonymous way to get some insights - which I now have, courtesy of some of the most ridiculous posts on this thread, ironically. There are no outing details here so how could this possibly be trying to get someone disciplined? And how could anonymous posters be useful "on my side"?! The accusations are just bizarre.

You come across as a real piece of work, nasty and spiteful! No I don't. And I am not.

OP posts:

HuffleMyPuffle · 28/04/2025 21:24

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:11

You are incredibly rude and also taking rubbish. Our children of the victims of what is going wrong in schools, and no it is not remotely my fault! How ridiculous. I am not in the least bit aggressive or antagonistic, I have been perfectly charming even to the rudest posters - the one time I was slightly rude (responding to one of the many rude posts to me) I asked MN to delete my post, because I am that nice and considerate. What right do you have to suggest my parenting is doing my child a disservice?! What a crock.

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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No

You have been rude. PP hasn't

Original poster

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 21:11

ThriveAT · 28/04/2025 20:29

OP, you are part of the problem of what's going wrong in schools these days. Your antagonistic, self- righteous responses are going to do your child a disservice. Just stop. Please. For your child's sake, turn that aggressive attitude around.

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You are incredibly rude and also taking rubbish. Our children of the victims of what is going wrong in schools, and no it is not remotely my fault! How ridiculous. I am not in the least bit aggressive or antagonistic, I have been perfectly charming even to the rudest posters - the one time I was slightly rude (responding to one of the many rude posts to me) I asked MN to delete my post, because I am that nice and considerate. What right do you have to suggest my parenting is doing my child a disservice?! What a crock.

OP posts:

JHound · 28/04/2025 20:31

I don’t see the issue with this. Victorian death photography is part of our / Britain’s history and the children are old enough to learn about it.

ThriveAT · 28/04/2025 20:29

InterIgnis · 25/04/2025 23:57

Ah! Victorian death photography! I was around that age when I first learned about it, and it was indeed at school. I found it interesting, not disturbing. Death was much more present in day to day life in that time, and wasn’t shied away from in the same way it is today. There were aspects of morbid theatre to the Victorian traditions.

Changing cultural traditions around death are a fascinating subject imo.

Edited

OP, you are part of the problem of what's going wrong in schools these days. Your antagonistic, self- righteous responses are going to do your child a disservice. Just stop. Please. For your child's sake, turn that aggressive attitude around.

KilkennyCats · 28/04/2025 20:29

GrammarTeacher · 28/04/2025 18:15

Now. That poem isn’t. It’s about his brother who died in an RTC at the age of 4.
We don’t (shouldn’t) have scripts to follow in lessons anyway.

Really pleased you’ve chosen Seamus Heaney 😊

ThriveAT · 28/04/2025 20:26

Lyraloo · 28/04/2025 15:13

It’s clear you don’t like this teacher and you’re trying your hardest to get her disciplined or worse! You come across as a real piece of work, nasty and spiteful! You posted on her in the hope of getting everyone on your side, it’s very clear that hasn’t happened and now you’re dismissive or argumentative of everyone with a different view to yours. You need a lie down to get over your sleepless nights!

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100% agree.

dapsnotplimsolls · 28/04/2025 18:45

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 10:32

Are these pictures a part of the curriculum? Genuine question. If so, could you link a source? Thanks

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I meant we do actually choose what we show/teach. Academies don't have to follow the National Curriculum so we can choose what we teach at KS3.

SummerFeverVenice · 28/04/2025 18:28

At least he wasn’t showing them the Victorian pornography photos. 🤣

SummerFeverVenice · 28/04/2025 18:22

whyiwonderwhy · 26/04/2025 00:05

Yes i see that but the subject was the industrial revolution - so the only way to engage the class is to show them photos of dead children and nothing else?! Really?!! Not about the actual amazing inventions of the industrial revolution? i mean showing photos of children working down mines would at least be on topic!

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The camera was an amazing invention of the Industrial Revolution. Kind of cool to teach children how it was used so even poor people could have an image of a loved one as prior to photography only the rich who could commission painted portraits ever got an image to look at as a momento.

GrammarTeacher · 28/04/2025 18:15

Now. That poem isn’t. It’s about his brother who died in an RTC at the age of 4.
We don’t (shouldn’t) have scripts to follow in lessons anyway.

Ruthietuthie · 28/04/2025 17:14

@whyiwonderwhy, I happy to answer your question, quoted from another poster, but also can't find the original post, or I would tag that poster too.

"If you can find the post i quoted, it says at the end (and I agree with this) "If it’s not [schools] showing kids awful photos it’s them pushing the trans agenda or pretending they can’t do anything about your child being bullied into mental health issues"
What do you both think about this?

On the topic of "pushing the trans agenda" issues, I think that we are on a very different page, BUT I also wouldn't comment on this question as I don't do research on this topic and don't have a child in the UK school system. My child is in the US school system, and despite a great deal of discourse about "the trans agenda," it really hasn't been a topic that has come up in any way in my child's classroom.
On the issue of bullying and mental health issues, of course I would want schools to act and would want support for any child in this situation. What parent and educator wouldn't?

You then write: "You have also defended the teacher here - do you have a role in deciding/influencing what is being taught in schools?"
Actually, funnily enough, I have consulted on elements of national curriculum. However, my contributions to this post come from:

Deep knowledge of how history is now taught - away from the "great inventions by great men" direction, to a more complex, nuanced history, which captures the realities of multiple people's lives.
Deep knowledge of pedagogy and of child development at multiple stages, focussing particularly on how children and young adults best learn deeply - how they come to really understand retain material, have the ability to critique it, to teach it to others.
Perhaps a different perspective than yours on what is "weird" and what is "traumatic." There are various reasons for this, scholarly and personal.

Recently, something happened in my son's classroom that my son found distressing. I did talk to the teacher, but my framing was very much "I want to understand what happened and go from there." I wouldn't ever presume that I knew what was really going on in a classroom, what was behind curriculum design or lesson design, without talking to that teacher. Either I trust my son's teacher or I don't. Just as, in my classes, either my colleagues and my students' parents trust me, respect my expertise, or they don't. I am ALWAYS glad to answer students' questions about why we are covering certain material, what the big ideas here are, and why this matters. (My students are university age, so I am not in contact with their parents. But were I am teacher in a school, I would be glad to have such a discussion).

I don't think anything I say will convince you. And that's okay. But coming at this as both an educator and the mother of a younger child, I would be grateful for what sounds like engaging teaching. I would not find this way into the period strange, irrelevant, or troubling.

Ruthietuthie · 28/04/2025 16:53

@whyiwonderwhy, I am originally from the UK, but now live in the US and work at a university there. The Research Institute I am part of is in the US. We are funded by the university - so by the university's endowment and federal funding, by tuition, and by grant-funding, in our case, by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the National Science Foundation. (Although with Trump in power that is changing). We also have some funding from private organizations, such as the Mellon Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. For example, next year we will have funding from the Toyoto Foundation for a project that compares the way various Asian societies are preparing for the demographic tipping point that the World Health Organization calls "Peak Death" (where a large long-lived elderly population combined with a low birth rate means a society suddenly faces more death than ever before).
But I am also affiliated with a UK example, The Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. https://www.bath.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-for-death-society/
You can take a look at their current research projects and their funding sources here:
https://www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/current-centre-for-death-society-research-projects/

Centre for Death & Society

CDAS is an internationally recognised research centre focusing on the interdisciplinary social aspects of death, dying and bereavement.

https://www.bath.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-for-death-society/

Lyraloo · 28/04/2025 16:44

whyiwonderwhy · 28/04/2025 15:29

It has been remarked upon. But it isn't true. I am capable of being wrong - and indeed always admit to it when I find out I am.

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Maybe it’s more of a mental health issue than a fear of being wrong!

Lyraloo · 28/04/2025 16:41

adviceneeded1990 · 28/04/2025 15:14

None of the teens in DC's class "love a bit of shock value" and most really could do without it

Direct implication that you know every child in the class and what they like/dislike/respond to.

I know the kids and yes I would be able to engage the class without resorting to this sort of weirdness.

Further implying that you know every child and that you can engage the class better than the teacher can.

History should be taught giving a broad base level of knowledge first, and then specialising gradually, gradually narrow your field of study/specialised interests. A "powerful lens" is the wrong way round for children. They need the basic knowledge, the structure of the subject, the foundations, first.

Your opinion, not the way the curriculum states anywhere that history or any other subject should be taught. Presenting your own opinion as fact and implying a curricular knowledge that you clearly don’t have. Unless you can link something that shows history should be taught your way?

It wasn't relevant to the subject matter being taught, and wasn't appropriate in the context for a number of reasons. If you are an academic you are possibly out of touch with the needs of 13/14 year olds.

Your opinion, not fact, the teacher obviously does feel it’s contextually appropriate, but again implying that both the teacher in your post and the academic you are responding to don’t know what they are doing and that you know better.

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Very well said. She clearly thinks she’s a cut above everyone else and knows best about everything!