Page 15 | Teacher showing photos to kids of victorian dead children - slightly disturbing

queenofthebongo · 27/04/2025 18:07

As a teacher I have discussed this with my kids, however, I think they instigated the conversation. I think it’s really interesting and so did they . It opens up so many opportunities for discussion/questions and sparks interest.
It’s just history. We teach them about war/killing Jews and there are photos of that. I know which I find more horrific. These parents did it to have one photo of their child. It’s sad.

dapsnotplimsolls · 27/04/2025 18:08

I still want to know what else the teacher has done.

GiveDogBone · 27/04/2025 18:15

Wait till they cover the Kennedy assassination and he puts on the Zapruder footage.

Scottsy200 · 27/04/2025 18:23

As long as your kids aren’t 8 I do t really see what the problem is 🙄

Scottsy200 · 27/04/2025 18:31

whyiwonderwhy · 26/04/2025 00:38

It really isn't a good idea to try to engage children with gruesome stuff. I know exactly what you are talking about. And perceived wisdom here seems to be "oh yeah, i had to go through this at school, it is great". But it isn't a good idea at all. None of the teens in DC's class "love a bit of shock value" and most really could do without it. You could explore social attitudes with one photo maybe, amongst others. Not only showing those photos.

Show quote history

Why is it not a good idea? when I was a teen I would have loved that stuff but then again I haven’t been Molly coddled like some of the teens are today that aren’t allowed to see such gruesome things. It’s history, it’s life, once again someone who only wants to pick and choose what’s being taught to their snowflake kids

IAMINYOURWALLS · 27/04/2025 18:35

Can we trade problems? Leave that poor teacher alone, she probably didn't even create the powerpoint slides.

envbeckyc · 27/04/2025 18:35

In year 9 pupils are being taught to evaluate evidence of historical documents etc…. and the Victorian death photos at first glance just seem to be a family photograph, it’s only when you look at them in detail do you realise that it’s not exactly as it seems, and upon closer inspection you can see more details about the sociological economic status of the
family in the photo, and possibly from the date try to consider the potential cause of death. Do the other family members look well nourished for example? Do their hands show signs of manual labour?

As for looking at photos of industrial machinery, well it’s just picture of something with limited need to interpret the image, not least because many of the Industrial Revolution machines are housed in museums across the country where you can actually see them.

OP I think you are totally missing the point of the lesson which as all historians know is to analyse and critically assess all source material!

Kurtcobainscardigan · 27/04/2025 18:35

Hate to break it to you OP, but the kids have seen much worse on the Internet than a few grainy photos of dead victorian children.

BuildsLikeASkyscraper · 27/04/2025 18:40

It's a good illustration point of C19th industrial revolution in the UK though. New technology capturing the excess deaths - including children - in the diseased and polluted cities which powered the revolution. The photos are new machine- produced mementos mori where the old and new cultures come together: like spirit photography.

I had a student ask to do a project on 'Postmodern photography' once. Ambitious, I thought. He had a Northern Irish accent I hadn't quite tuned in to. When he brought his grisly work in, I realised the word was 'Postmortem'.

Iamthemoom · 27/04/2025 18:48

I would have loved this teacher. The Industrial Revolution would have bored the hell out of me, Victorian death photography - now you’re talking!

RandomDepressedPun · 27/04/2025 18:48

I would be more annoyed teacher was teaching myth as fact. Victorians DID take memento mori pictures of people but they were exclusively lying in state/ in coffins, not made to look alive. This stems from a lot of different reasons but the main ones are:

Sometimes parents hid under drapes to hold their child in place - this is for the same reason it’s hard to take pics of little children now - they’re wriggly!

Stands for holding bodies upright - nope, these were for helping live adults pose still in the correct position - the stands would simply not be able to keep a dead body held up because dead bodies tend to want to fall down a lot. Even Horrible Histories got this one wrong!

Tinting of images was in its infancy and a bit iffy, leading people to claim it was being used to try and make the corpse look alive.

And the big one - slow shutter speeds meant it hard to stay still and so by the time the picture was taken the subject might have had an unfortunate facial expression captured (otherwise known as ‘sometimes people are just ugly, not dead.’) Similarly a lack of experience with having a picture taken led to a LOT of people adopting unnatural poses.

Therenare a lot of images that are often shared on sites purporting to be memento mori and unless they are in a coffin or on a bed surrounded by flowers they just…aren’t. And some of you may be thinking of a few examples of one and so I’ll stop you there and say ‘no, not even those.’ ‘But I saw XYZ say it’s a memento mori/ they’re selling it as a memento mori-‘ they’re lying or misinformed. A lot of seller of old photographs quite simply lie about it! Memento Moris sell hand over fist more than the Addams Family’s yearly photo

TaterTots68 · 27/04/2025 18:50

We were about the same age when a police officer came into school and showed us photos of people who had died after taking drugs. We were fascinated and it certainly put me off taking drugs. I can't answer why the teacher showed them, but I don't really see anything wrong with it. Sorry

LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand · 27/04/2025 18:52

I don't think the photos of dead Victorian children are the actual issue. The Op clearly dislikes this teacher and is trying to find fault and get Mumsnet to agree. This parent seems to think they know better than the teacher, the school and the curriculum, or at least that's the feeling I'm getting. It may be that she/he has a point about the teacher but this is not it. However the op is entrenched and won't change their mind. That's obvious.

RandomDepressedPun · 27/04/2025 18:58

Well then in the teacher’s defense, the kids have almost with 100% certainty in fact NOT seen a Victorian dead body

Frrrout · 27/04/2025 19:03

Azandme · 26/04/2025 00:45

And you are better placed to know that than the trained professional who has a history degree, a teaching qualification, and literally does this for a living?

Tell me, op, how would you engage a classroom full of year 9s - and what, exactly, would be the reasoning behind your decision?

I'm a teacher, although now SLT so not teaching. A little shock and awe is FANTASTIC for engagement and I can guarantee they won't forget any of this lesson, of which the photos will only be a small part, with the wider, important context given too. As someone who has taught about the Industrial Revolution I can promise you teens engage far more with the human aspect than the engineering. A good teacher balances both and uses what interests them (and teens are macabre) to support their engagement in the bits that don't.

Thankfully parents don't set the curriculum, or plan lessons - because you clearly don't understand how to capture the attention of 30 teenagers, and keep it.

Your child learnt something today, and was interested enough to tell you about it.

And you think that's wrong. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I, on the other hand, think that teacher has done a great job in piquing their interest in the era with a 😮🤯 moment - which they'll take forward into the rest of the module.

I know it's a bit of a shocker, but teachers generally know what they are doing.

Show quote history

This.
I am half convinced this is a wind up thread. If not, and by some stretch this is real, this parent needs to take some deep breaths, release the pearls and perhaps rethink whether she knows the inner workings of all her child’s classmates minds.
They're year 9. There’s the internet. If they really want to see disturbing shit it’s at their fingertips right in their pocket every day. A few death photos really won’t leave a class of kids needing therapy and I agree this will likely have helped hugely with engaging a class of teenagers not necessarily intersted in Victorian feats of engineering.

IsThistheMiddleofNowhere · 27/04/2025 19:22

When I read the title of your post I automatically assumed it meant primary school children and thought it way out of line but think it's fine for 13 or 14 year olds.

GoldBeautifulHeart · 27/04/2025 19:34

whyiwonderwhy · 25/04/2025 23:51

I am finding this so disturbing I can't sleep! However I might be being oversensitive, who knows. It is the "but - WHY?" bit which is bothering me most.

The lesson was about the industrial revolution, and the subject of photography came up, 2 of the earliest photos were shown to the class (13-14yo) and then....I wish I could say the teacher showed photos of some of the extraordinary engineering inventions of the day, or of busy streets, or China, or something wonderful and extraordinary...but no, the teacher showed 10 photos of dead children and talked about how the Victorians would photograph dead children as though they were still alive, with the rest of the family, in a commemorative way. I have seen some in the past (I didn't learn about it at school however) and they are moving and tragic and disturbing. Nothing else, just these photos.

Just wondering...why? why would the teacher do this? Any ideas?

This teacher has form by the way. A lot of it. But this has for some reason blindsided me.

You think this is bad?

They showed us as teens victims of the holocaust, a video of them all over being pushed about by tractors or JCB type machines like they were nothing, like they weren't bodies.

You can't shield everyone from everything in the world. Yes I was horrified watching it and remembered thinking we can never forget this atrocity.

History happened and we can learn from History. It can give us empathy.

AlleycatMarie · 27/04/2025 20:16

@whyiwonderwhy I would imagine the lesson and the topic covers various aspects of the industrial revolution and that time period. Kids tend to focus on the macabre. I really don’t think the teacher was unreasonable for showing it - it got the kid’s attention and was an important social aspect of this time period. It is frequently taught.

WhatAwonderdulLife · 27/04/2025 20:19

pikkumyy77 · 25/04/2025 23:59

People still have open casket funerals. Victorian death photography is not very disturbing compared to that.

We sure do ! And even as children would approach the casket, even touch the dead person's hand or if very close, kiss the cheek! Might sound grim, but was taught from young age not to fear the dead...

ThinWomansBrain · 27/04/2025 20:24

given the shit they can find on the internet, it wouldn't be my biggest worry.
surely they are aware that people die? that different people have varying attitudes to death, and what is culturally acceptable changes over time?

Cattenberg · 27/04/2025 20:25

RandomDepressedPun · 27/04/2025 18:48

I would be more annoyed teacher was teaching myth as fact. Victorians DID take memento mori pictures of people but they were exclusively lying in state/ in coffins, not made to look alive. This stems from a lot of different reasons but the main ones are:

Sometimes parents hid under drapes to hold their child in place - this is for the same reason it’s hard to take pics of little children now - they’re wriggly!

Stands for holding bodies upright - nope, these were for helping live adults pose still in the correct position - the stands would simply not be able to keep a dead body held up because dead bodies tend to want to fall down a lot. Even Horrible Histories got this one wrong!

Tinting of images was in its infancy and a bit iffy, leading people to claim it was being used to try and make the corpse look alive.

And the big one - slow shutter speeds meant it hard to stay still and so by the time the picture was taken the subject might have had an unfortunate facial expression captured (otherwise known as ‘sometimes people are just ugly, not dead.’) Similarly a lack of experience with having a picture taken led to a LOT of people adopting unnatural poses.

Therenare a lot of images that are often shared on sites purporting to be memento mori and unless they are in a coffin or on a bed surrounded by flowers they just…aren’t. And some of you may be thinking of a few examples of one and so I’ll stop you there and say ‘no, not even those.’ ‘But I saw XYZ say it’s a memento mori/ they’re selling it as a memento mori-‘ they’re lying or misinformed. A lot of seller of old photographs quite simply lie about it! Memento Moris sell hand over fist more than the Addams Family’s yearly photo

That’s interesting. I have heard of Victorian portrait photos having eyes painted on them if the subject blinked at the wrong moment. But I’ve also seen this cited as proof that the subject was deceased.

Lyraloo · 27/04/2025 20:42

Oh for goodness sake, they are 13/14 years old not 6! It’s your problem not theirs. The photos are not gruesome or graphic, the children, for the most part, look normal. It will not have any detrimental effect on your children unless you keep making a big deal of it!

Lyraloo · 27/04/2025 20:49

whyiwonderwhy · 26/04/2025 00:42

Thank you! I think you might be the only sensible person here!

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What you mean is “thank you for agreeing with me”. Can’t you see it’s you that almost everyone disagrees with, it’s not “sensible” to agree with you, it’s rather pathetic to say you’re having trouble sleeping, you poor sensitive soul! I bet your kids aren’t lying awake thinking about it.

notnorman · 27/04/2025 20:49

Azandme · 26/04/2025 00:45

And you are better placed to know that than the trained professional who has a history degree, a teaching qualification, and literally does this for a living?

Tell me, op, how would you engage a classroom full of year 9s - and what, exactly, would be the reasoning behind your decision?

I'm a teacher, although now SLT so not teaching. A little shock and awe is FANTASTIC for engagement and I can guarantee they won't forget any of this lesson, of which the photos will only be a small part, with the wider, important context given too. As someone who has taught about the Industrial Revolution I can promise you teens engage far more with the human aspect than the engineering. A good teacher balances both and uses what interests them (and teens are macabre) to support their engagement in the bits that don't.

Thankfully parents don't set the curriculum, or plan lessons - because you clearly don't understand how to capture the attention of 30 teenagers, and keep it.

Your child learnt something today, and was interested enough to tell you about it.

And you think that's wrong. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I, on the other hand, think that teacher has done a great job in piquing their interest in the era with a 😮🤯 moment - which they'll take forward into the rest of the module.

I know it's a bit of a shocker, but teachers generally know what they are doing.

Show quote history

Absolutely this- high school teacher/ SLT too.

notnorman · 27/04/2025 20:51

WhatAwonderdulLife · 27/04/2025 20:19

We sure do ! And even as children would approach the casket, even touch the dead person's hand or if very close, kiss the cheek! Might sound grim, but was taught from young age not to fear the dead...

Show quote history

I sat for hours with my brother in an open casket, reading to him, when I was 11.