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!?

How about 24 hrs in a room with Boris Johnson?

My children never had to do this for homework. I hate watching films with torture in, so I think this is awful. Children should not be asked to think of new torture methods. I would be asking to speak to the teacher.

inciting 12/13yos to think about or consider ways to commit violence on another person will NEVER be appropriate.

What if one of them decided to actually make it? This isn't part of history, its not engaging.. we don't need to be considering how to modernise/improve on medieval torture devices.

Rather than take it seriously, go with a funny answer but still keeping educational and suitable for the age group:

No mobile phone
Being forced to watch Help I'm a Celebrity on repeat
Having to be in a room with an over powering scent of Lush
Being made to wear clothes 3 sizes too small
Having to eat brains
Daily ice bucket showers

My point being to think about the time period we live in, what our levels of comfort are and what is appropriate to teenagers and then work backwards from that in terms of what would make life a lot more unpleasant for them.

She could do something clever along these lines, without being goulish and inappropriate.

I thought that most 'tudor torture devices' were actually invented by the victorians and never really existed anyway.

Contact the Teacher - if not happy go higher !

I loved reading about such things at her age and would've found it really interesting homework!

@dreamingbohemian

Everyone saying their kids would love this assignment, I mean really? Does that not concern you? That your kids would enjoy coming up with more effective ways to mutilate people? Not just kill them but make them suffer agonising drawn-out deaths. That's really fucked up.

Don't know about my kids, but I would have enjoyed this as a child. I can safely say I have not turned into a violent sadistic bully. I felt guilty the other day because I had to drive over some already very dead roadkill.

But horror and gore has always fascinated me, and I liked school work that required imagination, so this would have ticked a lot of boxes for me.

As an adult I don't see the educational value in it, and would prefer my kids weren't set homework like this. But let's not pretend enjoying this type of homework is a marker for psychotic behaviour.

I can honestly say this wouldn't bother me.

Humans have always been fascinated with the macabre. There's an opportunity for them to get really creative here.

It's not going to turn them into little psychopaths.

It’s not great but my year 7 kid would love this!

Absolutely dreadful! Something like that would have kept me awake for many nights when I was a child. It's sufficient to know such things happened without detail.

I objected to the London Dungeon, thought the entire concept of that was awful, never mind kids going there on school trips.

You won't be the only parent to complain about this.

@Allaboutyou222

It’s not great but my year 7 kid would love this!

I think posters here would be shocked at how many children would find this hilarious.

They can be morbid little things when they want to. :o

@Benjispruce5

How about 24 hrs in a room with Boris Johnson?

That's a better idea, plus an evening with Farage.

Really bizarre, can’t imagine my children would enjoy this

What’s next, how could the Nazis have made the holocaust more efficient?
Design an exciting new experiment for Dr Mengele to carry out!

@GlendaSugarbeanIsJudgingYou surely that’s the point though, violence shouldn’t be hilarious. Teaching them that it’s light hearted is really odd, it’s vicious and horrible.

@RedToothBrush

Rather than take it seriously, go with a funny answer but still keeping educational and suitable for the age group:

No mobile phone
Being forced to watch Help I'm a Celebrity on repeat
Having to be in a room with an over powering scent of Lush
Being made to wear clothes 3 sizes too small
Having to eat brains
Daily ice bucket showers

My point being to think about the time period we live in, what our levels of comfort are and what is appropriate to teenagers and then work backwards from that in terms of what would make life a lot more unpleasant for them.

She could do something clever along these lines, without being goulish and inappropriate.

Good ideas

it's not about whether the kids would enjoy it.. most probably would, because most like the gruesome and macabre.

Its about how appropriate it is, in this day and age, to encourage them to be thinking about how to upgrade/improve on historical torture devices.. and on no planet is it, ever.

Isn't it a way to make them think about horrible this all was? Presumably it's in context? Horrible Histories was full of such stuff.

Nah, this is weird homework. It’s not even mainly history except it will encourage them to look up and learn the torture methods of the time and come up with something ‘better’ and unique.

It’s more a psychology, science (anatomy) and engineering type task. So it’s not really very valuable as a history assignment.

I remember learning about the holocaust in History and there was a photo in our text books of a mass grave. I struggled not to cry in class at the sight of those murdered families and the sadness that any human could be so evil to another. If the teacher had also set a homework to come up with new and more effective ways of killing Jewish people that would have been inappropriate.

This is no less inappropriate. The people in our history books were actual PEOPLE.

I’m all for us learning about the horrors of the past to understand why they happened and they should never be repeated. We don’t need to think of improved ways the people inflicting pain death and torture could have done a better job of it. It’s a bit sick.

@billycat321

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

If you're going to be inspired by Monty Python, how about this? The fish could get bigger and smellier until the victim gives in.

I think posters here would be shocked at how many children would find this hilarious

They can be morbid little things when they want to

Do you really think that parents don't know that kids can be morbid to the point of being anxious, suicidal, harming themselves, harming other kids, bullying...?

@RedToothBrush

Rather than take it seriously, go with a funny answer but still keeping educational and suitable for the age group:

No mobile phone
Being forced to watch Help I'm a Celebrity on repeat
Having to be in a room with an over powering scent of Lush
Being made to wear clothes 3 sizes too small
Having to eat brains
Daily ice bucket showers

My point being to think about the time period we live in, what our levels of comfort are and what is appropriate to teenagers and then work backwards from that in terms of what would make life a lot more unpleasant for them.

She could do something clever along these lines, without being goulish and inappropriate.

Go with this approach.

It is an insensitive / thoughtless hw, but presumably this is the hoped-for response.

Lots of people find gore funny, Pumper. They aren't all evil, vicious monsters.

@GlendaSugarbeanIsJudgingYou

Lots of people find gore funny, Pumper. They aren't all evil, vicious monsters.

They don’t have to be. But violence shouldn’t be promoted as a light-hearted, funny thing. It isn’t.

I must be twisted but I think this sounds really fun 😂