Rosa Parks. What age group would you expect learning about her to be targeted at?

[PavlovtheCat]

I am curious to know what people think they would expect their children to start learning about Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement.

I know it is taught in year 8.

I've just read that it was taught in year one. I would not want my son to learn about it at such a young age.

Tricky one. Part of me applauds it, but it's just way too early to do the topic justice.

My gut instinct said around 10 but actually 11 (secondary school) would probably be better than primary.

Although having said that, perhaps 10 would be ok as I remember that was the age at which we started to notice "differences" - the class I was in naturally segregated into boys and girls, where the year before we'd all played together in a big group far more.

At my kids schools it is covered about year 9 in History. However I was discussing it in the car today with my 8 year old. Her school is doing a series of assemblies on "Heroes" so far they have done: Emmeline Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale, Wilfred Owen, Helen Keller; they will do Ernest Shackleton, Nelson Mandela, Scott of the Antartic and some others.
Yes the version I gave my daughter was simplistic; but she was pretty shocked that black people weren't allowed to sit on the bus with white people, or at lunch counters. She doesn't need to know that much more yet, as she gets older she will be able to learn more about just how awful some people an be to others.
But it does depend on how in depth they are going to do the topic. Just as when they do World War II, I don't like them thinking it was about being evacuated to the country like a big holiday. I like them to know a little about Hitler, but not dwell massively at age 6/7 on the holocaust.

I think it entirely depends upon context.
I've been talking to my DC about sexism/suffrage/racism etc for as long as I can remember.
Whether I could provide enough age appropriate material to cover a school topic I don't know.

That said mummytime most jewish kids will be told from a very early ahat their cultural heritage entails. I don't think that's a bad thing.

I can't see why it is inappropriate if taught at the right level as has been mentioned here at any age. If I was telling a 6-7yr old who asked I'd probably say something like "a long time ago when granny was a little girl in america people were treated un equally because of the colour of their skin- it was a very cruel and wrong system but the law makers couldn't see it. Black people couldn't even sit on the bus unless they were in the back. A very brave lady called Rosa Parks saw that the seats in the white people section were empty and sat in one. She got into terrible trouble but she did it to stand up to how wrong it was. We should all be brave and stand up if people are being treated unkindly or unfairly for any reason shouldn't we".

I struggle with the logic of history that is taught in primary as I'm sure they have no internal timeline to "hang " things on until late primary /early secondary. Vikings/romans etc are just rattling food stories really.

I think modern history like this that can be hung on a hook of "when granny was a little girl" or similar is a lot more useful really.

My ds learnt about her for black history week last term, I think. He's in Y2. As far as I know, he's not actually aware that people have different colours of skin (not because we live in a whites-only neighbourhood, far from it - I just genuinely don't think he's noticed).

I don't know what they were told about her, I doubt it was much more than that there used to be rules that were very unfair and so they don't exist now, because of people like Rosa Parks.

I did find that having to explain racism to DS at 5 (because of BHM) involved covering stuff that was never an issue within his highly multi-racial nursery and R class. It felt bad introducing the idea that skin colour was a problem to anyone, at that age - it had not occurred to any of them that such a thing would be a problem. (DS is not white, by the way)

However, by 8 it's a completely differnt matter - I would guess that most 7 or 8 year olds will have seen something about the Steven Lawrence trial on the news, and there will have been discussion at school about all sorts of things. For a child absorbing the SL trial on the news I would very much want to emphasise the self-determination of black people in the civil rights movement, and R Parks non-victim status.

tribpot - of course he's noticed, children notice everything - but unless prompted to think it is an issue, most children wouldn't think it worthy of much comment, I think.

I would be very surprised if a child has not noticed that people have different coloured skin. Surely. they all notice that. In the same way that they notice that some people are girls and some are boys, some are tall and others short, some have black hair and others blond, etc. That is just general observation. I work with Y1 and I am pretty sure that every single child in my class knows such differences, and talk about them at times.

Noticing differences is normal and fine.
Changing the way you behave towards someone because of those differences is not always fine.