DD being asked to design a torture method for homework??

[milkysmum]

DD has been set her history homework for this week. She has to design a ' new Tudor Torture device'. Draw it, label it etc and explain why it would be more effective than previous know torture devices! AIBU that this is a bit unnecessary? They are year 8. Do they really need to be encouraged to think of new ways to torture people!?

@Thumpkin

My first instinct - as an absolute pacifist, vegan and past writer of Amnesty International protest letters - was this sounded like a creative way to show an understanding of historical punishment and the reasons they wanted to extract indignation under such duress. I read history books about iron maidens aged 13! Also read lots about witch trials and stakes and dunking and found it intriguing! Having read all the replies, I feel like an evil sadist! I honestly didn’t see the issue at first. Prepared to admit I’m an absolute minority. But maybe give the teacher a break in case they grew up on gory history like me and isn’t just a nutter.

The same! It was definitely engaging and I’ve managed to grow up without becoming an evil sadist.

Completely unacceptable. My child would not be completing this homework and I would be seeing the teacher / head teacher / governors - whoever it took - in the morning.

This is one AIBU that I hope the Daily Mail picks up on. I would have serious doubts about the teacher who assigned this.

There's a fucking war on, the teacher can just go look at the headlines if she's so into new torture methods. The morning headlines will surely contain something revolting she hasn't considered before.

My kids' school sent out resources today to help children deal with the utter misery of the world at the moment and some of the shocking things people are reading about, and for some, the fleeing and loss of family members. Yet this one teacher has decided that children need a little more darkness in the day.

People are messed up.

Some of the suggestions on here that the op’s daughter could work on a new ‘humane torture’ (?) or psychological torture method as if these are somehow more acceptable make me think there are some adults who need to learn a bit more about this subject.

As for the endless Horrible Histories comments - these are books for younger kids who are learning that history (and the world) is bloody in an age-appropriate way. Cartoonish, essentially. Someone upthread said the students set this homework are old enough for serious, thoughtful historical study and I agree. I learnt that torture was used when I was at school, and is important to understand how it was used, but we didn’t dwell on it ghoulishly, let alone get creative.

Several history teachers have now given reasoned explanations as to why this is a poor approach to teaching the subject, and it’s been pointed out that there is every chance that a child could have family experience of torture, yet people are still defending this crass rubbish as a good way to learn about the past.

@Pumperthepumper No they can simply turn on the news to learn about the Ukraine. Funnily enough they cant do that to learn about the tudors. I took my kids to warwick castle and they had an exhibition in the dungeons of all the torture methods used over the ages. The kids absolutely loved it and neither of them turned out to be psychotic killers........funny that!

Only on MN would you get this type of pearl clutching hysteria and people taking offence on behalf of others!

[quote wanttomarryamillionaire]@Pumperthepumper No they can simply turn on the news to learn about the Ukraine. Funnily enough they cant do that to learn about the tudors. I took my kids to warwick castle and they had an exhibition in the dungeons of all the torture methods used over the ages. The kids absolutely loved it and neither of them turned out to be psychotic killers........funny that![/quote]
Of course they could watch programmes about the tudors, there’s loads of them.

I’m not suggesting the kids in this class will turn out to be psychotic killers on the back of this homework. It’s more the dignity of the dead, the respect we should give when we talk about things like this.

Yeah that’s gruesome. Tell her she doesn’t need to do it and send in a note to the teacher, cc’ing the Head.

@wanttomarryamillionaire

Only on MN would you get this type of pearl clutching hysteria and people taking offence on behalf of others!

Who will they lynch first the teacher or Head. Maybe both. I see a headline of heads on pikes at xxxx school in the near future. 🤣🤣

I find it amusing that parents think they can insist on what their children are taught it doesn't work like that

@pucelleauxblanchesmains

I think some of the reaction - and why I dislike a lot of Horrible Histories stuff - on here stems from an assumption, articulated or not, that people in the past weren't quite the same as us and therefore we can be voyeuristic and comedic about some of the really harrowing stuff they went through. Like many PPs have said, designing a new experiment for Dr Mengele or a way to kill Vietnamese children instantly registers as a horrifically inappropriate idea, but if the people being tortured weren't modern plenty of people on here lose sight of that.

I agree with this. There's nothing wrong with teaching children about these subjects- quite the opposite- but there should be a basic level of decency applied to how we discuss it, especially in schools, and we shouldn't be encouraging the idea that it's ok to be entertained by the idea of human suffering as long as it didn't happen to modern people. It has a desensitising effect.

There's a difference between being interested in something and entertained by it.

Torture happened! Why wouldn’t this be ok? Henry VIII was a serial killer and we’re all obsessed with learning about him!

It’s more the dignity of the dead, the respect we should give when we talk about things like this.

Completely agree with this. I think that morbid curiosity, while very human, is not something a school ought to be fostering. I vividly remember pouring over an article about a murder in a local newspaper with a friend in the school library when I was about 12 or 13, and the librarian popping up to say with relish ‘ooh, murders are so fascinating aren’t they!’ Struck me that, yes, they were (I was indeed a morbid child), but that indulging that fascination was not right somehow. We were in fact embarrassed at being caught and found the librarian’s reaction weird.

So I get that this will interest some kids, but that doesn’t mean it’s something the school should be encouraging.

I think this is pretty sick to be honest, and if I was the pupil I would really not want to do this task. I don't think YABU to take this up with the school, this reeks v inappropriate to me.

I teach war and atrocity throughout history. I suppose I could make it 'fun' and ask my students to come up with more effective ways to rape and massacre defenceless villages? How could they have slaughtered even more people in Rwanda, I mean really, machetes are so inefficient. Should they have gouged out people's eyes in addition to hacking off their limbs in Sierra Leone? Now pretend you're a German bomber, how could you have killed more people in the Blitz.

It's not fun, it's not a film or a game, its imagining how to slowly mutilate and kill real human beings.

Many refugee children would find this upsetting, for them its not an abstract excercise. Thats not being pearl clutchy.

@dreamingbohemian

I teach war and atrocity throughout history. I suppose I could make it 'fun' and ask my students to come up with more effective ways to rape and massacre defenceless villages? How could they have slaughtered even more people in Rwanda, I mean really, machetes are so inefficient. Should they have gouged out people's eyes in addition to hacking off their limbs in Sierra Leone? Now pretend you're a German bomber, how could you have killed more people in the Blitz.

It's not fun, it's not a film or a game, its imagining how to slowly mutilate and kill real human beings.

Agree. In centuries to come, we won't be modern humans any more. How much time will have to pass before it will be acceptable to come up with 'fun' exercises to make learning about these atrocities more engaging? Discussions of this type should always be respectful, and we shouldn't ever be casual about human suffering no matter when it happened.

No this is unacceptable warped weird and makes me wonder what the motives are if the person setting the homework. It serves no educational purpose whatsoever noone needs to think up new methods of torture wtf? Report this person

Just out of interest what kind of school is this? Mixed state comp?

What’s wrong with dates, facts, and biographies for homework?

20:17Littlepaws18
What part of what I was talking about was made up ?

I don’t think it’s appropriate either.

It sort of made me laugh, which probably makes me a terrible person.

I guess they’re trying to get them to understand the Tudor mindset? But no, I don’t think it’s appropriate or necessary.

Wonder how the London/York/Edinburgh Dungeons stay in business given that most people on this thread feel so strongly about this being inappropriate.

@DragonMovie

Wonder how the London/York/Edinburgh Dungeons stay in business given that most people on this thread feel so strongly about this being inappropriate.

There is an obvious difference between something you choose to do and something you have to do.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I don’t think it’s appropriate either.

It sort of made me laugh, which probably makes me a terrible person.

I guess they’re trying to get them to understand the Tudor mindset? But no, I don’t think it’s appropriate or necessary.

Its not a "Tudor" mind set.

How many posters have unknowing or knowingly approved of the UK police beating a prisoner in the cells?

Because thats torture 101.
An improvement is putting on riot gear for self protection and using an asp.

I think some kids would love this...sounds like horrible histories!