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!?

Horrific! I would definitely complain to the school!

Year 8, not 8 years old. What's the problem? Do you micromanage all of her homework??

Oh FFS. Parental engagement in homework isn’t a bad thing even for kids in year 8.

You might want to leave your kids to it, others prefer to be involved in their kids’ education.

@Snoozer11

I'm more bothered about this sort of useless task being given as homework than I am offended at the subject matter.

How is this meant to help their education? I can understand if they had to research something, answer some questions or finish off something they were doing in class. But this is exactly the sort of bullshit that shouldn't be infringing upon family life.

The task requires them to compare with other Tudor torture devices, so to do the work well will require research and demonstrating that they've learned what has been taught in the classroom.

That is vile. There are people being tortured all over the world right now.

All aboard the Woke bandwagon.

Couldn't get excited about this at all.

OP I agree with you and particularly insensitive at a time when there is a war that people will see/hear about on tv each night. There may be school pupils whose families offer to host Ukranians who could see the homework at some point, and it's quite possible that someone could have lost a family member in one of the genocides. Rwanda and Srebenica are within most of our lifetimes.

I have taught the Tudors to Year 8 before and we do cover torture methods. The Folens textbook covers torture ethics and they are pretty gruesome.

I’ve never set this as a homework, it doesn’t sit right with me but the topic (if not task) is definitely one which many schools cover.

The task requires them to compare with other Tudor torture devices, so to do the work well will require research and demonstrating that they've learned what has been taught in the classroom.

Normally I would agree about research, but in year 8, I actually don't think it's wise to have children googling torture devices and methods for their homework. Yes they need to learn about it, but this is a topic where the materials need to be age appropriate.

@TheRealityCheque

All aboard the Woke bandwagon.

Couldn't get excited about this at all.

I wouldn't like it.

A family member was systematically tortured during World War II.

Sort of changes how you see things like this.

A quick look online (twinkle and bbc bite size) suggests that this is a common topic for this key stage.

I assume the teacher is trying to find an activity that engages the children. Maybe they’re taking the “horrible histories” type approach (gore and grossness).

Is your daughter disturbed by it?

Yes that is very distasteful and inappropriate.

I would complain personally.

@BillyBarryBoo

That's v odd. I'd send a note in saying DD is not completing this hw

I would too.

Back in the day, I did occasionally say my kids were not going to do such and such.
Teachers were very accomodating.

She could do a Monty Python 'comfy chair' where the 'victim' is 'poked with the soft cushions' or some device where they are tickled on the soles of their feet1

@Whatinthelord

A quick look online (twinkle and bbc bite size) suggests that this is a common topic for this key stage.

I assume the teacher is trying to find an activity that engages the children. Maybe they’re taking the “horrible histories” type approach (gore and grossness).

Is your daughter disturbed by it?

Learning about it to some degree is normal. Using imagination to come up with something new is different, strange and inappropriate.

I used to teach history, FWIW.

Yes.. Try this..
Having to pay the new fuel bills.

On a serious note- Sounds really creepy.
Is the teacher into strange practices?.

@SummerDays2020

That's awful. At that age having to do something like that would have traumatised me and given me nightmares. Probably would still feel like that if I was made to do it now.

Really?🙄

@Pieceofpurplesky I’m not sure pretending to be a spy is really the same, unless you’re encouraging them to adopt the mindset of a stasi-style of surveillance system where targets live in fear of lives leading to being “disappeared”, tortured and often their families’ lives destroyed for alleged crimes against the state.

Torture is a different kettle of fish. I think the homework is tasteless and disturbing. If the homework was studying Apartheid and Nazism and the kids were sent home and asked to invent the most offensive racial slur they could think of, or a new efficient method to exterminate Jews, there would (rightly) be an outcry.

@Whatinthelord

A quick look online (twinkle and bbc bite size) suggests that this is a common topic for this key stage.

I assume the teacher is trying to find an activity that engages the children. Maybe they’re taking the “horrible histories” type approach (gore and grossness).

Is your daughter disturbed by it?

There's nothing wrong with the topic IMO. But children are capable of thoughtful discussion about these important and difficult topics- there's no need to make it 'fun'. It's dehumanising.

sussexman So impressionable teens googling stabbing, drowning, hanging, burning... all fine, appropriate and necessary? Seriously that's the best the teacher can come up with, having centuries of fascinating human history to teach their pupils, they need to concentrate on depravity?

As a young adult I visited the Torture Museum in The Hague (don't know if it still exists). It was a truly terrible experience and I had to rush through the displays and leave as quickly as possible. The ingenuity of torturers in keeping people alive while torturing them almost to death was gruesome. Unfortunately, torture is very much still practised in some countries and, as a PP said, there may well be students in the class whose relatives have suffered torture. It should not be treated as a light-hearted exercise for some homework 'fun'.
I would complain.

Year 8 so 12/13 years old. No issue with it. Quite interesting and horrible history like. I also didn't check my children's homework - were we supposed to? Bit late now at 16 and 18.....

Surely looking at classic torture methods, humanizing the victims by making the children consider how they would feel if on trial and analysing why modern non-violent justice systems are better would be the correct way to do it.

That way you acknowledge it happened and teach it but you don't encourage kids to attempt to design the next bloody Auschwitz.

@TheRealityCheque

All aboard the Woke bandwagon.

Couldn't get excited about this at all.

I can't see what's woke about objecting to trivialising torture. It's not covering the topic that people are finding tasteless, it's the nature of the assignment.

I agree it should not be made 'fun', it is a serious aspect of the subject for an age group who are able to study real history.

This is highly inappropriate. Regardless of DD's feelings she perhaps doesn't understand how bad it is in the larger context I would contact the school.

People on this planet are being tortured as we speak. Making light of it in an abstract school assignment is reprehensible.