To feel uncomfortable about this school trip?

[TheHallouminati]

My son who is 14 and in year 10, is going on a history school trip to Whitechapel to learn about Jack the ripper and take a tour of the area.

I get that there is opportunity for learning about the era in which these crimes took place, such as the an exploration into poverty, the newly formed police force etc etc. But something about this doesn't sit well with me.

I'm finding it hard to articulate, but for me, the big business made out of the murder and mutilation of the most vulnerable members of society by a (likely sexually motivated) sadist is really unpleasant. There are so many sordid tours and museums etc which glorify and focus on the "mysterious" figure of Jack the ripper that it just seems to undermine the truth - that vulnerable women were preyed upon because their only choice was to sell their bodies.

Aibu?

Question!

I think I’d trust the teacher on this, they’re tied up with so much red tape these days I’m sure it will be suitable and relevant

I’ve done a Jack the Ripper tour and it was actually very interesting

Totally inappropriate. The sort of cheap exploitative tourist shit that I wouldn't have thought any decent teacher, or school, would fall for

No, it's a really good tour, gets the kids thinking about the social context and is an excellent base for discussion - it's very well delivered and the t&l pack
Is fantastic - he'll enjoy the tour and will learn a lot. It's not at all exploitative and he'll learn a lot.

Not RTFT but I have to admit, I would have loved to have done this at school. I wanted to be a dective when I was younger so have always found it fascinating, especially as he was never caught. It did change a lot policing methods at the time, also the conspiracy's around it are fascinating. They actually now believe it was a woman who did it because they actually had a letter that was sent to the police by Jack the Ripper that had DNA on the envelope and although they can't connect to a specific individual now, they did determine that it was female DNA.

YABU how are people supposed to learn about exploitation unless they study incidents linked to it. Imagine: I don’t want my son to go see auchwitz because I think it’s terrible how the Jews were persecuted.

That time has learning oppprtunities. If we don’t look at the history we cannot learn from it

My 14 year old did this as a school trip a few weeks ago. Crime is one of their major topics for gcse. He said the trip wasn’t gory at all and very factual. Think he was a bit disappointed!!!

Morbid history is always the most interesting history...especially to kids...hence the Horrible Histories and such. The story of the JtR case is absolutely fascinating and I'd encourage any teen to learn more about it. The nuances of the case make it interesting. I don't care who the victims were - it doesn't matter if someone is man, woman or child, they shouldn't be murdered - but this is been and gone, and it's interesting in a gory sort of way.

My DD did the same trip but a year ago. I didnt find it odd as she's doing history olevel and part of that is crime and punshment. They cover things like Henry VIII and his ministers. Imagine how gory that was ... beheadings, hung, drawn and quartered. They also went to the Old Bailey and had a talk from a journalist who had covered crimes. It was really interesting. I wouldn't worry about it. My friend, whose daughter also went, said how we'd love to do this o'level as it seems really interesting and the tour was great.

OP I wouldn't worry so much about the "tour" I live in that area and believe me these "Ripper Tours" (never been on one its too morbid for me) are a complete rip off (no pun intended) they take you to the areas Jack the Ripper killed in and none of them are there they've all been built on so all your son and his classmates will see is newly built flats! They'll probably take him to the Crime museum which in fairness is probably a better option anyway as they will be given the facts of the case not bloody fiction of a so called "ripper expert" never been to the museum but I hear it's worth a visit they also cover other historical crimes as well and go through the history of policing which is very interesting (I'm a former criminology student). Hope this reassures you OP

It sounds like a good trip to me and I would have had no problem letting my DDs go on it when they were that age.

You can't sanitise history and only teach the nice bits. Much of it was bloody and violent.

Snowflakes. Are you naive enough to think that you can protect them from the bad stuff and not prepare them for the harsh reality that life is dangerous? Do you not let them read newspapers or watch the news? This happened a long time ago and life is still dangerous for women. If the school think it is a subject they need to know about and is suitable for a certain age then they need to know about it. It’s ok you stopping them from going on the trip and there’s a huge section in the exam that they’ll not know and they fail, how do you think they’ll feel then? Under 10 then yeah think twice but at gcse level I think they’ll be fine.

I'm not a fan of sanitising or necessarily censoring what we teach kids about the past.

But of the whole of human history is Jack the Ripper the most important thing for 14 year olds to learn about?

I think a lot of the discussion around JtR is prurient, voyeuristic and exploitative. Should we taking kids on tours around where the Yorkshire Ripper's victims were killed?

There are still a couple of places in the area where bodies were found, that haven't been built over or lost through redevelopment. This is not a pleasant topic for school children - the murders were horrific and gruesome .

It is not just about JtR RChole and Katherine - it is part of a wider GCSE course on Crime and Punishment looking at WhiteChapel - inner city crime and policing and explores emerging role of detectives in the force, the slum nature of housing, the persecution of Jews, the emergence of homes for the "deserving poor", the role of alcohol and crime - the tour I linked to upthread is much more than a tour around JtR's haunts.

Thehalloumi, I bet there’s a lot of people who have thought groups of students going to Auschwitz on school trips wouldn’t take it seriously enough, and have been proved wrong. The students going to London will have research they need to find the answers to. I wouldn’t worry, the guides, and the teachers, will make sure it is handled tastefully.

I've previously posted the spec that explains how the Whitechapel murders fit into a wider topic on crime.

gets the kids thinking about the social context and is an excellent base for discussion

The "social context" for sadistic murders of those poor women, you mean. I've heard everything now. It is cheap exploitation, sorry. You can study 19th century crime, London, East End whatever, without having to base it round some poor women's brutal murders, to excite some interest.

People have no respect for the dead.

velvet - have you looked at the spec for this element of the GCSE course?

Oliver is about the exploitation of children maybe by some of these responses we shouldn’t be going to theatre or reading the book, what’s the problem they’re not going to watch a re-enactment,

The name of the tour is a problem. Why not cal it Victorian London? I don't think anyone is suggesting sanatised history at all. It is absolutely no different to calling a tour Fred West tour. It too existed with a historical time. All time is historical.

The Op doesn't know the name of the tour Bumper - the one I linked to above is called Whitechapel, Crime, Policing and the inner city' which is the subsection of the GCSE. Undoubtedly the children are calling it the JtR tour - but thats what children do.

But isn't the very fact the kids are calling it the "Jack the Ripper tour" demonstrative of the fact that they aren't taking anything more from it than armchair detective misogynistic nonsense?

But they haven't been on it yet... and its not clear that they've done much of that element of the GCSE so they are hardly going to be referring to it as "the tour where we learn about the conflict between beat policing and detectives" If you're 14 and you know you're going to be learning about Henry VIII and the "divine right of kings" you're more likely to make reference to Henry "Divorced, beheaded, died, Divorced, beheaded, survived" The crucial point of the tour is that it gives them a context to the wider socio-economic issues that shaped inner city crime and policing.

The Ripper tour I saw in a recent documentary makes it clear just what a desperate life those poor women had if that's your concern. I think there was mention that they were often alcoholic, or were widowed & unskilled, had no fixed abode, so worked the streets to get enough for a room for the night etc. The few mortuary pictures available are very poor quality/sad, not gory. The one on scene gory one is not that clear either. I don't think a modern generation find it as 'titillating' any more, as serial killer documentaries are everywhere now.