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.

If that's all you have to worry about be grateful. I did industrial history for A level many years ago. As interesting as it is now to me as an adult; as a teen it was dreary and downright grim. We didn't cover death practices either.

History is like that but kids are resilient

I was once obliged to cover a "Health" lesson for a class of Year 10s at a girls' school. The lesson was some boring text about the dangers of alcoholism. The kids were entirely disengaged and I wasn't going to put up with nonsense when I had a pile of assessments to be marked for an internal. I slammed my copy of the book shut, very loudly, then announced that we could do better at this ourselves, and that I was going to tell them a story. Intrigued, they shut up and listened as I told them about someone of my youthful acquaintance, a young woman who had become a heavy smoker and drinker at a young age. When she discovered that she was pregnant, she had the self control to stop smoking almost immediately. But back then, the connection between alcohol and F.A.S.had not been established. I described in great detail the baby and her painful, wasted life, her struggles to connect with people and her early death. The girls uttered not a peep. They sat there, stunned, and one or two shed tears. That was one of the best lessons I ever taught, the most meaningful and the most important. The girls, subdued, filed out at the end of the lesson, many thanking me for telling them how it really is.

I didn’t know about this, just looked it up. I would be fascinated at the is age. I think it brings home something of how normal/expected it was for Victorian children to die from poor diet, disease and industrial accidents. Kids study all sorts of gruesome things such as the plague. I think we attach more sensitivity to these things as we’re parents. I’m team teacher.

That’s excellent teaching. I’m glad you didn’t have any idiot parents complaining that you told them the real truth of what can happen.

I would much rather my children had a lesson like that.

It's a bit strange to show these photographs which have a flimsy connection to the Industrial Revolution, especially when there are ample images that are relevant. Also, were the kids aware that they would be looking at an image of what is probably the first dead body they have ever seen? Personally I would have wanted to be prewarned and I have decades on these kids.

History teachers always use the gory bits to engage students. I bet there were other bits to the lesson but this is the part your DC remembered or paid attention to

A bit macabre but as a kid that age I would have been fascinated .

Excellent. There is a serious shortage of teachers so plenty of opportunities for you to use your superior knowledge to advantage by becoming a teacher instead of a critic.

I suspect you are younger than me, the trend for disturbing stuff is relatively recent.
I know you are younger than me because I was at school in the 60's/70's - it isn't recent at all. Kids love this sort of stuff. What is more recent is parents wrapping their kids in cotton wool.

Oh - and you are also really rude when people don't agree with your weird opinions.

I think it’s relevant to the lesson. When photography was first made available to the general public it was expensive. People didn’t have lots of photographs taken because they couldn’t afford it. When someone died they would then shell out the money because that was their last chance to get a lasting memento of that person. I’d assume the teacher was explaining that to the class. Kids these days are used to being able to take photographs whenever they want on their phones so it’s good to show them how rare and precious photographs were when they first were available.

I thought you were going to say they were 5 or 6, not 13 or 14.

The photos will have been quite tame - children dressed up nicely and with their families.

I’m pretty sure at that age we were being show videos about the holocaust etc.

13/14 year olds will have daily access to far more dodgy content if they use the internet IMO.

You are seriously over-reacting.
Personally, I'd have no issues with it at all if they were my kids.

So were the kids upset and traumatised by it, or fascinated and engaged by it? I think it matters as the teacher has either misjudged the class and upset them and needs told, or has got them interested talking about history.

I show worse things as an English teacher and ask students how they feel about the pictures I show them (it links in to a poem that criticises the public about what goes on in other countries and war etc) and they’re very desensitised to it all.

Oh dear, you’d have been furious at my DD teacher. She let them watch “The others” in class once. Many dead Victorian photos featured.
I wasn’t mad, I was her age when I watched it…. And loved it.

How do you know the subject was the Industrial Revolution? Perhaps it was one of a series of lessons and the teacher wanted to show the differing attitudes to children in Victorian times. I bet it got the class's attention. It won’t have done them any harm.

This thread shows how far we are removed from death in the UK. Especially when that death is of a baby or child.

Photographs are still taken of little ones after death, including very beautifully and sensitively taken family photographs. They are sadly sometimes the only photographs the family will have of their baby/child not obscured by the wires and tubes that were trying to keep them alive.

I’m delighted for each and everyone of you who has been given the good fortune not to have to grieve for a child. But maybe just think about how much more painful grief would be if you had nothing to remember their precious little faces by. Those pictures you consider weirdly disturbing, tell the tale of someone’s deepest love and deepest pain, captured in a moment. If only they could have had more!

Please try to get a grip on your reaction before your children become aware of it. If they grow up to be bereaved parents (like many of us are) They will need to freedom to grieve without judgement.

I can see how this would be highly triggering to children who had lost a sibling or parent or other close family member. There should have been a letter home to give a heads up so that it could have been discussed ahead of the lesson or the option to miss it. To be confronted with the images of dead children or parents would have been horrific to any child who had been through that trauma and the teacher would likely have had no idea as it can happen at any age and though nowadays should possibly be included in paperwork (you’d think) it isn’t stamped to the child’s forehead. At this age thankfully many children haven’t experienced that yet but it does happen and the teacher should not have assumed everyone in the class would have been ok with this. There’s also the matter of sick and dying family members who again may not be on the teacher’s radar - you’d hope and expect they would but in secondary school there are. A lot of pupils with multiple teachers so as it would be difficult to be up to date across the board, surely teachers should be wise to err on the side of caution on sensitive subjects. Children can’t be sheltered from the world, it’s true, but there’s a difference between talking about a sensitive topic that could potentially be damaging to a child’s MH and showing them bloody photographs with no prior warning and presumably discussing them during and afterwards. Poor kids.

At that age however, I think showing them pictures of dead bodies in any circumstance would be inappropriate - whether that be soldiers, Holocaust victims, drug addicts or those involved in accidents without speaking to parents/carers first to ensure it doesn’t do the child more harm than good. Having a blanket assumption that these kids would be in the minority and therefore not worth bothering about is pretty shitty and the opposite of a policy which was a government initiative and neon-lit in all schools when I was a student and then teaching - that ‘EVERY CHILD MATTERS’.

Think you’re being quite precious. We learnt about the holocaust at 15/16 and some of those photos are truly harrowing

When I was at school we saw photos of people with radiation burns after Hiroshima etc

I also remember those horrific public information films from the 80s which were on TV and terrified the life out of me and I had nightmares about them for months afterwards - does anyone else remember them? they were nightmarish

Dumbdog - 25-ish years ago, a senior boarding school? Or 20-ish years ago, a prep school?

Have you heard of the Horrible Histories books? Teachers probably use this stuff to engage kids with the topic in general. I didn’t know about this aspect of Victorian history until I read it on here and it’s really interesting!

It's the first (possibly second) week of the term. So probably started with social/ cultural aspects of the period before moving onto the scientific/ economic/ political changes. Re-assess at half term, and if all they've learned about is dead babies, then there would be a concern.

This is the age group who will be going on to learn about the World Wars and the Holocaust before long... There will be (rightly) some incredibly upsetting photos shown then.

I do agree OP that it isn't what I'd think to discuss when covering the IR and Victorians so I'm intrigued as to how it was justified and framed to the kids. The incredible inventions and also the horrors of the period (the poverty, disease etc) would make more obvious sense if trying to convey a historical narrative and trying to stimulate debate. That said, different ways of thinking about death over time is an interesting topic in its own right and would have intrigued me as a kid, especially if linked to a wider thread about how treatment of the dead has differed across time and culture.

Kids will learn about and see so much worse in their history lessons.

We also had picked foetuses ( dating back to the Victorian age when my school was founded) on the shelves in the Science labs. No one was particularly shocked at the time!

We watched videos of people in concentration camps. There was severely underweight carrying the dead to mass graves. Would have been traumatising for the people in the video having to do it knowing that will soon be them. I wouldn't say it was traumatising for us heartbreaking yes but it happened it's part of history. I felt blessed we don't have to live through that when other countries still do.

@whyiwonderwhy i also studied this period of British history at school and degree level. i even come from the Black Country where it all began. But I think you’re unusual in finding the engineering side of it fascinating. Personally I found that dull af and concentrated on social history aspects. At school I would have loved to see these pictures as a way of engaging with the social history of the time.