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

[whyiwonderwhy]

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.

Where have I been rude? Let me know and if I agree I will have it deleted. Again, HTH, HuffleMyPuffle.

I agree

You do and you are

You refer to unnamed "other incidents" and that some supposed "high up" person, but not in the school, agreed with you and then moan that teacher didn't get sacked

You want this teacher gone and are reaching for a reason. You hoped we'd all agree so you felt justified in using this as a way to attack a teacher you have some personal beef with

points to all your posts
Maybe all of this

This isn't entirely true, as there are a large number of entities referred to as research institutes which are funded by individuals or companies. Also if you look at how universities get their funding, you will see that elements come from industry and charities - and if you look behind charity funding you will find individuals or "trusts" funded by individuals... When you say the costs dwarf even what super rich can afford, what sort of figures are you talking about for your research institute in one year, say? The main players in the billionaire world are big contributors to academic research, tis well known I thought.

Why is your research institute researching into 19C attitudes to death so significantly? And what research does it form part of - how societies through the ages see death?

My posts are not rude! Oh my goodness, I do quite despair! My posts are very straightforward and polite - the only time any sharpness has crept in has been in reaction to the insanely rude posts of other people!

Your post about this being traumatic is ridiculous. Have you ever watched horrible histories?!

Some children suffer real trauma, not seeing a photo is a maybe dead person.

You don't come across very well OP, a bit smug, think you know more than the teacher, when you're unaware of the reality of most 13/14yos. Your kid is a bit sensitive is the lesson for you.

What you are saying is absolute nonsense and really quite dangerous and the fact that it is quite dangerous is the only reason I am bothering to reply to you. You seem to be suggesting that if someone reports concerns about a professional more than once, it means automatically that they have some personal beef/are reaching for a reason? If so you are wrong. In terms of "hoped we'd all agree", what I report and don't report in real life is to do with whether or not I think there is a concern which needs reporting. What you "all" think is not a factor at all for me. This thread was about me understanding what was going on, nothing to do with whether I should report or not.

The only thing which would stop me reporting something I felt really needed to be reported is if there were a possibility DC would suffer as a result - as I indicated in an earlier post - not whether or not you approved.

Could you go and bother someone else now on a different thread, with your made up accusations and personal insults?

Thanks very.much, I'll read these. Im aware of the types of pictures involving coffins and death beds like the one you link- but what I'm specifically interested in, is, are there treatises that describe how to pose a dead subject as if living, rather than as if dead?
The images the OP is talking about are people that look living.

Thanks for this, it is helpful. When you say "with trump in power that is changing" do you mean the analyses being done currently by the DOGE, and the review into where education funding is going generally, or will there be specific cuts in relation to your area of research, and if so do you know why?

Just absolute rubbish,

What right do you have to suggest my parenting is doing my child a disservice?! What a crock.

You are incredibly rude and also taking rubbish.

Your other post said something different and was nonsense.

I know exactly what i am talking about and you really don't. Sorry.

I think you might be the only sensible person here!

Have you been sniffing glue?!

I suspect you are younger than me, the trend for disturbing stuff is relatively recent.

This is actually quite therapeutic as it is making me laugh.

right back at you, my lovely

If you are an academic you are possibly out of touch with the needs of 13/14 year olds.

I think it is honestaqua who is purporting to be allseeing and all knowing, not me purportedly talking to someone allseeing and all knowing!
She has no idea what was reported, but KNOWS it was unwarranted!which you know to be unwarranted because you are... all seeing?

Direct quotes which are rude, dismissive, sarcastic or otherwise from you OP

It's not dangerous. It's directly summarising your point.

If someone so HIGH UP thought this teacher was indeed dangerous or wrong then this teacher would be gone. But as we don't even know who this person is and they don't even work at the school then it would seem this teacher is doing a fine job

You don't like being called out for your actions and are now trying to act like the wounded party

Why is your child a victim, I honestly think you need some mental health advice, you’re clearly not well!

10 photos wouldn't take up a whole lesson. So I am sure there is more context and content to the lesson than just this. Maybe your child particularly remembers it because she found it the most fascinating aspect.

Was your child upset by it? Surely lots of the age group will have seen the news coverage of Pope Francis over the last week? I don't think it's a particularly unsuitable topic for that age.

You either are or you’re mentally ill, I’m now leaning towards the latter! Your responses to people who disagree with you, your superior attitude to even professional responses, is frankly disturbing. I’d be careful with what you are telling school, the next thing will be a SS review as a safeguarding issue for the way you are behaving and interacting with your children and their schooling. If you get in such a state over next to nothing, you need some help!

Wrong poster. But no, humanities research institutes are really not funded by industry or charities, unless you count very unusual bodies like the Wellcome Trust which is a very respectable funder of medical history and all sorts of medical research. Even in the US, non-hard-science disciplines are generally funded from university endowments and core funds.

When I say the cost of a big research institute I’m thinking of a big department in the experiments sciences, for example. Now you may have something like the (fictitious) William J Banker III Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences in shiny new building which cost £100m to build and has a big research staff. In reality William J. Banker III probably contributed £20m for the naming of the building, plus with a nice sideline in being invited to all the posh university fundraisers for the next 25 years. The rest of the cost is funded by the university endowment (for the building) plus running costs from an existing department budget plus core staff plus postdocs and contract researchers funded by grants/soft money/etc. William J. Banker III might now get fulsome praise and invitations to the building opening and endless dinners with the VC and the Dean, but he doesn’t have any input into the running or research of the institute, or any of the core funding decisions. He just gets name recognition. To actually pay and run a whole research building plus staff in the sciences is way more than an alumnus or donor is going to pay.

A few industries have their own research arms, usually pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals, but less and less these days (and this is research “in industry”: these aren’t independent research institutes.) Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft run their own company “research” organisations. People like Musk and Bezos fund companies and businesses, not university research. Proper research is independent: that’s why it’s done in universities. You might get grant money from somewhere, but that source doesn’t dictate the content of your research: colleagues, academic panels and review bodies do that.

If you are thinking more like the kind of “research institute” that is really a lobbying organisation, for example a US think tank or the Adam Smith Institute or similar, then they are largely not research institutes in any way that university academics would understand the term.

I don't think it is a question of convincing, more to do with understanding where other people are coming from. When you said that you didn't think you'd be on the same page in relation to transagenda, what did you mean? My concerns are that some of what is being taught is not age appropriate for children, that there is insufficient research in relation to all the issues and that many groups who consult do not have sufficient awareness of wider issues affecting children and their development. Do you disagree?

The other problematic areas I see are to do with language - whether current methods are resulting in lower levels of literacy - and about progressive education (the idea that no formal education is necessary) - are these issues in relation to which you consult/have influence?

You then refer to your "deep" (is that word significant?) strengths, I really am interested in what you say, I would like a better and clearer understanding. So you said your contributions were based on:

1. Deep knowledge of how history is now taught - away from the "great inventions by great men" direction, to a more complex, nuanced history, which captures the realities of multiple people's lives.
2. Deep knowledge of pedagogy and of child development at multiple stages, focussing particularly on how children and young adults best learn deeply - how they come to really understand retain material, have the ability to critique it, to teach it to others.
3. Perhaps a different perspective than yours on what is "weird" and what is "traumatic." There are various reasons for this, scholarly and personal.

In relation to point 1 what does a more complex, nuanced history, which captures the realities of multiple people's lives mean exactly? It sounds very interesting, but doesn't give much indication of what changes you'd like to see to how history is taught and why, exactly? Where do you get your expertise on this subject, presumably it did not come from traditional education, such as a degree, but you have a lot of faith in it, I can see that - where does it come from? I understand that you support children being shown these photographs of dead children - what other things do you see being taught, in a break from tradition?

In relation to point 2, your knowledge of pedagogy and child development is not the same as that developed by psychiatrists and psychologies in peer reviewed research over the last 50 years (UK/US) from the sound of it - so where does the deep knowledge come from? Genuine question - is there decades long research informing your knowledge or more recent research from a new source?

In relation to point 3, what is your perspective on what is "weird" and "traumatic", how exactly does it differ from what you understand mine to be, and what are your scholarly and personal influences here? My reference to traumatic is informed by research. My reference to "weird" is more colloquial.

In relation to your son, your approach to schools sounds very similar to mine, in general terms.

Why is your research institute researching into 19C attitudes to death so significantly? And what research does it form part of - how societies through the ages see death?

I’m not that poster, but if you want to know why, it’s because people find it interesting and important! In the humanities, you basically choose what interests you, and what you think is a new and potentially productive topic. People set up research centres when they find other people who are also fascinated by a new idea or field and they want to collaborate and generate more ideas and research output (be it books, articles, conferences, whatever). And those groups of researchers put together applications for funding to do more of the interesting research, and the people who are responsible for giving out university funds start thinking “well, that sounds new and interesting”. And that’s basically how it goes.

Death is a perennial subject of fascination, but it also informs public policy, culture, literature, music, urban planning, medicine, religious faith, politics, war, technology, economics and agriculture, amongst other things - and these all have effects on each other. It’s also something that has a deep relevance to our individual and collective human lives. Of course it’s interesting to study; and to see how our understanding of it changes through time. As a student I studied a hugely popular paper on death in early modern Europe: it was a huge part of the culture of that era, in a way different again to the Victorians, and an understanding of it hugely enriches the standard narratives schoolchildren get of the Tudors and so on.

@whyiwonderwhy, I am happy to answer your questions about the changes under Trump.
So, yes this is part of the actions by DOGE but also broader funding shifts from the administration.
Directly, my National Science Foundation grant which examined the long-term impact of Covid-19 on health professionals who worked in Covid wards was cancelled. We were assessing the number of professionals who left healthcare after Covid and what effective support might look like in contexts like this. This is part of work on the impact of mass death and of grief. The grant was cancelled because, in our grant application we wrote:
a) That Covid-19 had different impacts on people of color - they were more likely to die. And we wanted to see whether these statistical trends were continued in the impact on health-care workers. The fact that Covid-19 had a disproportionate impact on certain populations is a fact, plain and simple, but the new administration is will not allow research on this topic.
b) Our grant mentioned that we wanted to assess the impact of misinformation about Covid-19 on health-professionals, particularly their experiences of dealing with families of sick and dying Covid patients who believed misinformation and how they navigated this. Any research on misinformation is now not being funded.
c) As a rule, ALL research on Covid-19 is no longer being federally funded, including modeling of the possibilities of future global pandemics.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds all sorts of research in the humanities, and with which I also have funding, has also had nearly all grants cancelled, as has The National Endowment for the Arts.

I think it is easy to imagine that the research that is being defunded is on narrow or "woke" topics (a deeply problematic term, of course - and I am in favor of funding all sorts of research, including in the arts and humanities, for the good of an educated society, but an easy short-hand here). However, much of the research is, for example, medical research, which will have a deep impact on long-term health outcomes, not just in the US (where health-care is deeply problematic, as you know) but globally. I have colleagues who for many years have worked on programs to eradicate TB and Malaria in certain regions. With the defunding and closure of USAID these are gone, overnight. We risk creating new global health crises that will have an impact on everyone. You can read more about this at balanced and reputable sources such as the Pew Research Institute: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-data-says-about-us-foreign-aid/

You say you aren't that poster - I was responding to your post which included links, in which you said that you were a historian specialising in the 19C and I thought (but would have to scroll back) you indicated that this area was your expertise? I would have to scroll back to check!

But in any event, thank you for your answer. There is a perception out there that academic study is not as independent as it used to be, but I am guessing that you wouldn't agree with that. As you say, politics and culture is informed by research, and this thread illustrates how children - that is our society of the future - are being influenced, so it is important.

@whyiwonderwhy, I see you have responded to my other post too. Thank you for that. I'll respond later as I just picked up my son from school and need to get dinner on, but I will respond.

What was the "misinformation" you wanted to research, re misinformation given to health care workers which affected how they then dealt with patients?

You have referred to "woke" and just to explain to you that I think that the anger about this is to do with the fact that vast amounts of money were being given to forward particular political agendas, at the expense of welfare of the majority.

You seem to have a wide area of academic interest - from medical to humanities - this will seem confusing to anyone with a traditional academic background. And I think I understand that you are basically saying that you want to support what people call "woke" and get rid of "traditional"?

I really appreciate your honesty. To bring this back to this thread, would you say showing a bunch of photographs of dead victorian children in the middle of a class on the industrial revolution is a "woke" sort of thing to do? Do you think that in the face of serious drops in education standards, rather than trying to persevere with traditional education and instead start teaching things like how victorians photographed the dead is "woke" because it opens up the minds to new and woke ways of seeing things?

I have colleagues who for many years have worked on programs to eradicate TB and Malaria in certain regions. With the defunding and closure of USAID these are gone, overnight

I think you are saying the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater? I don't think that that is the intention - I would hope that any research which is as important as you say there would be opportunities to claim funding in the future

what does a more complex, nuanced history, which captures the realities of multiple people's lives mean exactly? It sounds very interesting, but doesn't give much indication of what changes you'd like to see to how history is taught and why, exactly? Where do you get your expertise on this subject, presumably it did not come from traditional education, such as a degree, but you have a lot of faith in it, I can see that - where does it come from?

Again, I don’t want to answer for @Ruthietuthie, but academic history at all levels is now aimed at capturing multiple different kinds of lives and realities. This isn’t new: it’s an approach that builds on coming up to fifty or sixty years now (or more) of research that is interested in how we construct historical narratives and who features as important in them.

University academics normally have undergraduate, masters’ and doctoral degrees in their subject, plus postdoctoral research and teaching experience and maybe twenty or thirty years of further professional experience. During that time they will gain broad and deep knowledge of a field and a research area from numerous angles.

I work in cultural and intellectual history and visual culture, but can teach all sorts of areas and am familiar with different approaches across my field and time period from social history and history of science, to literary history, history of the emotions, history of philosophy and critical theory, history of music, art history — lots of areas that intersect with my own research specialisms. We don’t just read books on our own narrow area, but new research across lots of different aspects of the field (this is why academics love research institutes: you get a chance to interact with and learn from what others are doing.) More importantly, this all develops skills in analysis and research that can be transferred into other related time periods or cognate disciplines.

So I've just had a chance to read through all your posts and you have focused a lot on what you think of this lesson you didn't actually partake in. There is no mention of your child's feelings or opinions.

As a year 6 teacher, who teaches The Victorians every year, I have never mentioned the photography of the dead but every single year a child has added this to our class discussions. The fact is humans are fascinated by the weird and strange, especially with history. There is a very popular series and book collection called 'Horrible Histories' for a reason.

I did a degree in history in the 1990s, and what you say sounds completely different to what I experienced - and what I experienced in academic life at that time was pretty much how academic life had been for many decades before that! If I go back to my old university now, will I find these substantial changes, or will I find much the same as when I left?

My profession hasn't changed much, certainly. In terms of resources, and precedent, and study, not much has changed.

So I don't entirely recognise what you are saying, other than the changes I see in my DC's education in relation to how a small number of teachers teach. Most of the teachers are excellent and teaching traditional education along the lines of my own education many years ago. In relation to history, some of the history teachers are teaching traditional history, and others I guess you could say are following a more "woke" agenda

Thanks for your replies, all very interesting.