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???

@FatOaf

"In particular, the horrifying history of the Nazi extermination camps and other mass killing operations should be avoided"

I completely disagree with this. The more we avoid confronting people with the horror of what happened, the more likely it is to happen again.

The OP and others are not saying that kids shouldn't learn about these things at all but that they shoukd learn it at a later age. When it's actually much more likely to sink in. You can only really understand WWII, the holocaust and what led to them once you know the history of Europe from 1900 onwards, voting systems, political systems including the Weimar Republic, the economic situation prior to 1939, appeasement, etc.

I am David was the bbc children’s serial for schools in the 1970s-played live in assembly one a week. It was from age 5 up

A lot of my family at the time were Jewish and we later found out their relatives had been in camps (they fled in the pograms). I was seen as something of an expert as a result in our rural village

YABU. At that age kids will find out about stuff in many different ways, far better that they learn in the classroom. If he is finding it difficult then maybe you could start a discussion about it and chat it through.

@picklemewalnuts

Goodnight Mr Tom, and the Boy in blue pyjamas are Y6 books, about second world was, concentration camps, child abuse, cruelty and neglect, etc.

Both my children watched these films/read the books at school in year 5 or 6. I think it's important that they know about these things.

What age is Michael Murpurgo aimed at (I forget when ds read these). There was some war stories in there - a child will seek out more info on such things (hopefully not in the internet). And the whole ‘horrible histories’ - wasn’t that built around the gory stories in history?

DS is 11 and loves Michael Murpurgo he has been reading his books since middle of year 5 I would say. Elephant in the Garden is one of his favourites and although it’s not about Holocaust it is certainly about the horrors of war.

@KittenKong

What age is Michael Murpurgo aimed at (I forget when ds read these). There was some war stories in there - a child will seek out more info on such things (hopefully not in the internet). And the whole ‘horrible histories’ - wasn’t that built around the gory stories in history?

I have never seen a HH episode about the holocaust. The genocide is on another level to the horrors and atrocities of The Tudors or the French Revolution, it also happened much more recently and shapes our political life to this day, and we're less removed from it. I can't think of any "fun" way to present and talk about it.

There is no ‘fun’ way. I heard first hand stories when I was a small child (and some were definitely held back and we didn’t hear the full camp details until after grandad died - he was at Auschwitz when it opened). Mum and dad were kids/teens (in heavily bombed areas) and had their own stories.

Poor poor little kids in the UK. Rammed into formal learning aged 4, sitting behind a desk at 6, learning about genocide at 10.

Every minute of their lives mapped out and accounted for. Or the other end of the spectrum, roaming the streets and scrounging for food. Sleep deprived, malnourished.

For Gods Sake, when did common sense leave?

@sadperson16

Poor poor little kids in the UK. Rammed into formal learning aged 4, sitting behind a desk at 6, learning about genocide at 10.

Every minute of their lives mapped out and accounted for. Or the other end of the spectrum, roaming the streets and scrounging for food. Sleep deprived, malnourished.

For Gods Sake, when did common sense leave?

With your post probably.

I think he is too young personally .Some children are more sensitive than others and 10 is still quite young IMO. I appreciate the need to educate children but going into gory detail like this seems like overkill to me

I personally think it's too young.

They've got plenty of time to learn about how fucking brutal life can be.

Can't they just be left as kids without any worry or anxiety for as long as possible?

I learned more a lot the war at the knee of my parents and grandparents (until I went to secondary school and studied history).

My DGF was in the first world war,he never spoke about it once ,apart from saying he had to look after his horse first .That was all ,Obv traumitised

@Oblomov21

"Not about the grim details."

But teacher didn't give grim details. She plainly told them the facts. How else are you supposed to explain it. Her sentences were factual, succinct abc to the point. They sound perfect to me.

Knowing about the gas chambers and that people climbed over each other attempting to escape but all died inside is a grim detail that imo is not necessary to tell to children of this age.

I don't think that age 10 is too young to know any of these things, but focusing and emphasising the horrifying details is not necessary at this age imo.

My dc aged 7 and 9 know about the concentration camps, that millions were murdered there, but not how - yet.

They know that 2 women a week are killed by current or former partners but not details of how that might happen.

They know about the terror in the French Revolution, but only broad details.

They don't know about Charlie Hebdo but they do know about the terror attacks in London - again not in detail. They know there are bad people in the world, but they don't need to become terrified of going anywhere because a terrorist might attack - which they would if I didn't limit what they learn.

I think YANBU OP. They can learn all these things in an age appropriate way.

There is a shed load of research to show that starting an educational straitjacket with young children is having disastrous effects on their MH

I dont think 10 year olds need their minds burdened by detail about genocide.

I don't think anyone can really comment unless they were in the classroom to be honest. We dont know how the information was presented - juSt the Op's interpretation of her child's interpretation.

Worth talking to the teacher direct though.

I was more scared of ghosts and quicksand (yes really) as a small child. And the Black Panthers (I don’t know why, but I thought they were actual panthers and coming to get me).

I'd rather them learn it early and be scared/shocked by it, than at a later stage and it have no effect!

know what you mean, but I just dont think that terrorising children is the way to teach empathy and right from wrong and and diversity.

Terrorising them, really? By teaching them historical facts which I'm sure was done in a manner appropriate to the age group. The use of hyperbole doesn't help your case.

I don't think anyone can really comment unless they were in the classroom to be honest. We dont know how the information was presented - juSt the Op's interpretation of her child's interpretation.

I also agree strongly with this.

@sadperson16

Poor poor little kids in the UK. Rammed into formal learning aged 4, sitting behind a desk at 6, learning about genocide at 10.

Every minute of their lives mapped out and accounted for. Or the other end of the spectrum, roaming the streets and scrounging for food. Sleep deprived, malnourished.

For Gods Sake, when did common sense leave?

Haha I don't recognise that description of my own children or those I've taught. I'm sure there are better education systems, and plenty worse too. I don't feel that the world eyes the participants of our education system with pity really.

"I don't think anyone can really comment unless they were in the classroom to be honest. We dont know how the information was presented - juSt the Op's interpretation of her child's interpretation."

So true. Really wish more parents took this sensible view.

The news is worse. My youngest learnt about Anne Frank in year 6 and we visited her museum in Amsterdam. Both of my 2 now 15 and 17 have a profound love of history with so much more knowledge than I have. They particularly love ww1 and ww2 history and visiting historic sites. Travel restrictions have stopped our visit to dresden, leipzig, Nuremberg, Munich and Dachau. I love their enthusiasm and passion for the subject. Their great grandfather was a pow so to me it's important.

@fourminutestosavetheworld

"DC is usually accurate when relaying stories about what happened in class, his teacher would agree with that, from what she has said to me."

Just ask her then.

But I think you will find the points you raised were not taught in isolation. They were set in the context of the wider lesson or sequence of lessons. In some cases, they may have been a minute out of an hour long lesson. They may have arisen as a child asked a question.

Your child isn't lying. He is telling you his perception of the lesson, where those distressing details were writ large and took on disproportionate significance in his mind, gaining momentum at home when you displayed some disapproval or doubt about the teacher.

Such lessons are rooted in the NC and a lot of discussion goes into the level of detail that is appropriate, and which resources to use.

For me, the fact that your son is upset at a painting of the French Revolution, suggests some unusual sensitivity. I wouldn't go in from a position of thinking that the teacher is not acting appropriately, but from a position of wanting to support your son. I'm not suggesting that you ignore it btw. I have only ever had one complaint about how WW2 is taught in our school, and that little boy did go on to need an awful lot of support, so it is certainly best to investigate.

@fourminutestosavetheworld I think you are missing the point here - the guidelines say that the grim details should not be taught at all - there have been at least 4 posts upthread which say this explicitly, quoting from the guidelines

Lessons in maths, language, science, history, sport, geography, the world around all take into consideration the child's stage of development in terms of cognitive ability and physical ability. Yet they do not across the board take on board the child's stage of development in terms of what the child can process, emotional maturity.

I think covering all these subjects is right, in an age appropriate way.
Time spent teaching children about emotional intelligence and doing projects in the community to build empathy would be time better spent than grim details about terror.

The teacher started these classes around April, and they were on a particular day and DC would say on that morning "Oh God - more trauma today" (with dark humour). How would you feel if a work colleague came in every week with some new grim details to share thinking that everyone just needed to know in order to save the world from future terror?!

So your saying you believe your son was being traumatised in school every week but didn’t say anything from April to now? and yet now suddenly it’s a massive issue