10 year olds learning about the holocaust etc

[restbetweentheelements]

Dc's yeargroup are 9/10
His teacher this year has told them in graphic detail about:

• gas chambers in german concentration camps
• terror in french revolution by showing painting of chopped off head with blood held up next to guillotine and details of what happened
• all about the charlie hebdo teacher terrorist attack in france
• murders in news how many women were killed by partners - they chatted about the news on fridays and dc said it was never about life affirming things (he said nice or interesting things)

DC has been affected by it, and he drew a picture of his teacher with a guillotine and children and he wrote "our teacher is killing us with terror" (he draws a lot, is quite expressive generally...) - i found the drawing screwed up in the bottom of his bag

YANBU - the teaching is not appropriate, the subject matter of treatment of Jews etc is ok in age appropriare way is okay but focusing on terror aspects is not
YABU - no problem with this

If YANBU, then WWYD
I remember learning about medieval torture methods when 10, at school. Is there some sort of theory about terror being useful for 10 year olds???

Its normal and most get taught this at their age my DC did at their Primary School.

In your case OP show the picture to the teacher your DS has drawn so he's aware of the effect it's had.

WW2 was my DC topic this January during lockdown & I was quite worried because they were already pretty depressed. Fortunately although they learnt a lot of facts, the more emotional side was based on the experience of evacuees. I was traumatised learning about the Holocaust at secondary school, my DC can wait a while longer, 9/10 is too young. I’d also worry that the children who weren’t traumatised ended up desensitised.

@Mintjulia

I've thought this for a while.

Yes the Holocaust is important but it's just not necessary at 10years old. No wonder we have so many depressed children if their reading matter is gas chambers and concentration camps.

Would you prefer kids of this age to learn it first hand?

This is my point FFS. The young are the ones who will be in charge one day. Keeping them in a santitised, comfortable bubble when young, creates arrogant, do no offend me or you'll be on the breadline, arseholes.

No. We coddle our kids and I'm no exception. They need a good rattle while their brains are soft.

@restbetweentheelements

These are interesting replies and I expected the mix. The subject matter was all familiar to him, he has books on history, he knew about the terror, the holocaust. Other than the charlie hebdo murder. Why tell the children what happened in gruesome detail? The detail is difficult for adults to process.

It was the way the teacher was only focusing on the terror which I thought was bizarre. For the holocaust, the recommendation for 9 and 10 year olds the advice is talk about what happened, personal responsibility and choices. Not about the grim details.

And to only talk about murder and death in the news talks?

@Geamhradh how do they disagree, can you give details?

I very much doubt that the teacher was "only focusing on the terror", though. You yourself have zeroed in on one element of what's happened in the school year and presented it as if that's all they've done. Which would be disturbing if it were true, but it's obviously not.

When covering topics that include confronting or frightening elements - despite that tough element only being a very small but necessary part of the session - I have seen children who were so affected by that small element that it was the only thing they took away from the session. Like none of the rest of it happened.

For instance, covering water safety. A brief reference to the consequences involved but the majority of the session spent on positive things they can do to stay safe and neutral things like learning about beach flags... and a child goes home telling their parent how they did a lesson about drowning (and all the stuff their imagination has added on top) and is so frightened at the thought it becomes all they can think about.

Yet the rest of the group goes home calm, some of them ask parents to go swimming at the weekend, some of them go home and teach siblings about beach flags, some want to become a lifeguard.

One child goes home and starts worrying about mum or dad or baby brother drowning and forgets all the things they learnt to prevent that because they're so overwhelmed by the fear they felt in that brief moment of realising that death could affect them.

From their perspective, because that moment of discussing the confronting element was so frightening or distressing it became the one and only thing they remembered from the session.

They then built it up even more in their minds so that when talking to them about it, to them it was truly as if that had been all that was discussed and they could not remember any of the context or any of the hopeful elements (like the Kindertransport would have been for the topic you mention). And in some cases they were so frightened that they mixed up the facts they'd been told so that they seemed even worse.

The children weren't lying when they recounted their memory of the session, it was just that it tapped into that primitive threat/survival part of their brains and distorted their experience.

Given the rest of your posts, this sounds like what's happened with your son. I sincerely, sincerely doubt the teacher has been doing sessions focused entirely on horror like you suggest.

And the teacher is patently not "killing" anyone, so that makes clear that your son's perspective is out of kilter with what is happening. That is a very, very dramatic thing to say.

Regardless, your son appears to need support. I think that would be a more constructive focus. You becoming dramatic about it yourself won't help.

The holocaust is a compulsory topic at KS3. Our secondary leaves it until the end of year 9. (They then got caught out last year, as it had to be covered in lockdown, which wasn't ideal, but they emailed all parents to let us know and point us at the resources.)

Things like Anne Frank can be covered without going into the full horror of concentration camps.

@pinkyredrose

our teacher is killing us with terror

Rather dramatic but he needs to learn. He's a good age to take this stuff in.

Guess he will be a writer when he grows up!

If we don't study history then we are doomed to repeat it

It is not helpful to raise children in a dissociated fantasy bubble that you then burst to confront them with the miserable, scary, and painful reality of human life without the coping skills or experience to manage it.

Whose needs does that meet? The parent's need to deny their fears, not the child's needs.

Death is part of life, existing in a state of denial about that makes it harder to bear not easier.

We learnt this in school when I was 10. I actually read Anne Frank by choice at that age.

Then again I'm part Jewish so I grew up knowing about it - but I was fine learning about it. It's an important part of history.

@Vodkabulary

We learnt about Anne frank as part of Our ww2 history in years 5/6 when I was at primary. We also did war time Cooking and recipes, had to dress as Evacuees and make our desks into Morrison shelters

We did too but we weren't told what concentration camps really were. We weren't even told that she was murdered, just that she died in there. My tiny little brain thought that she had been forced to go on a camping trip and I still imagine her now sat around a camp fire with other people. I also remember thinking they were a bit dramatic hiding in an attic because of camping, until I heard she had died but again I thought it was unfortunate rather than by design. I remember learning about concentration camps in year 9 I think and it finally clicking that poor little Anne Frank had to go through that.

YANBU OP I think that is too young. Children don't need to know the gruesome details.
We learnt about the vikings and Bodecia (?) and romans without going into gory detail. Teacher probably is a bit sick in the head talking about this stuff with 9-10 year old children. It isn't appropriate and you have proof that your son and his peers are not ready or enjoying it.
Speak to the head if you feel you can. You could email anonymously with a throw away account if you feel too embarrassed. There is plenty of time for the gory details. I would be concerned.

I think the Charlie Hebdo is a hard one as you really need to understand a lot of context around the subject to discuss the matter. Their cartons are awful. I think will be tricky for a 10 year old in uk to grasp

But Holocaust, 100% yes although it is a harrowing subject and support needs to be there for the children. I remember having nightmares as a child thinking it would happen to my family (again)

yabu

Too young. Many 9/10 year olds will lack the emotional maturity to process it. I remember having nightmares for days after learning about it...it affected me profoundly.

And if teachers have to 'sanitise' it to make it OK for that age group to learn about it, it loses some of its impact anyway. Much better to wait until children are older and can cope with the whole harrowing truth than to omit important parts of history.

I'm French and can't remember a time when I didn't know about the Revolution and the guillotine. I mean, paintings of it are everywhere in city halls, history books, museums...
Just go to your local church, there's a guy hanging on a cross with nails in his wrists and feet.

History is full of violence, especially in the last century, I'd be worried if a 10 years old kid didn't know that.

If anything, 10 seems really old to hear about Holocaust. Next year, he'll be exposed to porn according to statistics.
So we prefer kids to know what a bukkake is before them knowing what happened 80 years ago?

I think the subject isn't the problem but whether it is age appropriate.

Another factor is children in the class who know more and ask questions and how the teacher responds.

I think you need to raise it with the teacher, to actually ask what is being taught.

I knew more about the holocaust than I should as a small child, because my parents watched, "World at War". Wikipedia tells me the first episode was aired days after my seventh birthday.

I think that is too young to be taught about the upsetting and horrifying parts of history. If I was taught this at 10, I would of been upset. I think 13 is the earliest.

Obviously I agree with history being taught but at appropriate ages

Yep 10 years old is old enough to know about the evil of the Holocaust.

It's the only compulsory component of the history curriculum by law. And it also is taught in both year 9/10. It's absolutely essential for students to understand how equality and human rights c

... easily be taken away. It's a fundamental component of twentieth century world and civil liberties.

Tbh I'd be surprised if this hadn't come up in normal conversation with a 10yo anyway. They're exposed to a lot of second hand information at that age, overhearing news, other people's conversations, the Internet etc. They learn about sex and relationships at 10yo these days when people my age (early 40s) didn't learn about it until secondary school. The conversation with my 10ds came up a long time ago. "Mum, what's the Boy in the Striped pyjamas about? What was the holocaust?" He has older cousins and had overheard a conversation. Aren't most children of that age asking lots of questions? I've gone on the basis that if they're old enough to ask, they're old enough to know.

The "killing us with terror" sounds really bizarre though

They were being taught about 'The Terror', a period in history. He probably didn't mean the teacher was 'killing them with fear'.

I also don't think it's too inappropriate as long as they aren't shown disturbing images. Look how mollycoddled many of the youths of today are. Notifying the authorities etc if somebody says something they deem non-politically correct. 😂 They need to toughen up a bit.

As an ex secondary history teacher who is now a year 6 teacher I would not teach it in primary. I have placed the holocaust into pshe lessons and we have studied holocaust memorial day. However to do the subject ultimate justice it needs to be taught in depth in ks3 with great emphasis on the build up to it, the rise of fascism and the appalling results. I used to dedicate a great deal of thought to it. Even then some teens would not be mature enough to fully comprehend it.

I tend to agree with the Holocaust Trust who focus on ks3 and disagree with some literature aimed at younger age groups. There are plenty of ways to teach tolerance and understanding in ks2 without going into the complexity of the Holocaust. It is frankly impossible to teach the second world war with the depth it deserves in year 6. Most primary teachers are not history specialists. It's not a "this half terms learning focus"- it deserves to be more than a whistle stop in ks2. Most primaries are now aligned with the curriculum and focus on pre-history and settlers and invaders now to build up a solid knowledge of early history and historical investigation before entering ks3, which is more useful in my opionion.

I think it is appropriate. I think though you should be made aware when it is being taught so you can talk to your child about it should they wish to afterwards. There will be some adults who perhaps should know more about these events from history than they do, such as those anti-vaxxers in demonstrations over the last few months who have made comparisons between Covid restrictions and aspects of Nazi rule.