8yo DD's homework based on Bond films - WIBU to complain?

[QueenOfFeckingEverything]

DD's class are basing this term's work on 'Spies'.

She has come home today saying she doesn't know how to do her homework because she doesn't know who James Bond is. Apparently the homework is to find out about a villain from a Bond film and then write about them - she's left the sheet at school so is unsure of the details though.

Now I am Not Happy with that. Bond films are not suitable for 8yo children - aren't most of them 12 or 15 rated? Surely the school should not be basing homework round films the children should not have seen - obviously I am aware that most of them will have done but it shouldn't be assumed.

Plus as far as I am aware (not a film watcher myself really) they are somewhat sexist, or at least Bond's treatment of women is, and I don't really want the films and their messages given tacit approval by school tbh.

So I am thinking I might write and state my objections...

Yeah, the older ones are mainly PGs.

But the recent ones aren't, and they are the ones that are most likely to be in the video shop/library/shelf at home

And even so, if some of a series is wildly age-inappropriate they should not be basing homework for young children round the series as a whole. They have assumed that all the children are already familiar with Bond villains and that if they are not, their parents will have no issue with them becoming familiar with them. They have issued no guidance at all about what films are and aren't suitable and appear not to have considered that many parents prefer to take age ratings/unsuitable content seriously.

Plus DD has just told me that last week they were given computer time to find out ten facts about James Bond in class. I bet the teacher wasn't making sure they were only looking up pages about the films that were PG rated. I am pretty pissed off tbh.

The famous villains who anyone might want to write about are from the early films though.

Goldfinger, Rosa Klebb, Jaws, Blofeld, Dr No, Oddjob.
None of the recent 15 cert films have villains with anything like the same sort of pulling power. I can name the recent villains, because I'm a film nerd, but I can guarantee that they're not who a child would find on a search or want to write about.
The problem is that some of the female villains are sexualised, and they might find something unpleasant on an unsupervised search.

I would imagine the school internet is filtered (it would be unusual if it wasn't) so your DD would be unable to access inappropriate material.
You seem to be looking for things to be annoyed about tbh

Show her this:

but maybe don't encourage her to choose as her villain.

DS is eight, has never seen a Bond film and won't be for a while yet. Totally agree with you, OP, that they are completely inappropriate for this age group.

I agree mrz, op seems to want to complain about something....anything.

I still do not see what the big deal is.

I'm annoyed because school are sending DD home with the clear message that Bond films and their villains are something she should be familiar with.

That pisses me right off. She is 8. Are they really incapable of finding spy related films and characters that are suitable for that age-group?

I don't care if some of the films from 40 odd years ago are not overly violent or sexual and therefore have a PG certificate. Since then things have changed, the Bond films have become entirely unsuitable for children of 8 to view, and schools should not be sending the message that they are

Bond shags and kills his way through all the films, PG or not.
I don't think they're appropriate for 8yo. It is the casual violence for me- he is bruutal and callous, and I don't think id want my 8yo thinking the way he treats people is acceptable, or even (given the glamour in these films ) desirable.

agree with OP, and the other agree-ers

DD and DS had to do a project on Shakespeare last year - that's grossly unsuitable content for Key Stage 1 too but I tried to find a way round it because it comes under the heading of general knowledge. Unfortunately DD insisted on writing about Titus Andronicus anyway

I agree that this isn't ideal, but it's not a huge deal, and if you have more serious beefs with the school you should focus on them.

See Shakespeare I'd be ok with - does that make me a big fat hypocrite?

There is no possible way to produce a homework topic that will please all parents. The poor teacher cannot possibly win.

No one said the OP's daughter had to watch any of the James bond films (whatever their certificate). There are plenty of other ways of finding out about Bond villains, including asking her parents about them. 30 seconds with google gave me this guardian article about Charlie higson's favourite bond villains (he writes the Young Bond books).

I really do think some people just love to get on their high horse and have a good moral panic.

I had already mentioned Charlie Higson, a popular choice in schools, and was ignored.

Yeah, I knew someone had (and been ignored in the rush to be indignant). I was mostly trying to illustrate how incredibly easy it is to find out information about bond villains without watching the films or looking up anything 'unsuitable'.

Knowing about bond villains will be very useful in the unit as it will help the children to understand the tropes within the genre and where they came from.

Honestly, it's a bit like objecting to homework about batman in a superheroes topic on the basis that the dark knight isn't suitable viewing material for 8 year olds.

Well, I'm not sure why they need to study spies or superheroes at all.

DD is in a year 3/4 class - their recent topics have been animals/habitats, the human body, and now mountains/volcanoes. They also did work using the Horrid Henry books in literacy last term. Frankly, that all sounds a lot more appropriate to me.

Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy though . . .

But spies and superheroes are important genres in literature and popular culture. It's important to teach kids about them so they can understand them and, crucially, think critically about them. Education isn't just learning 'facts'; it's learning to think about the world around you and not just accept it at face value.

Absolutely - but at 8 years old? Plenty of the children in dd's class are only just reading, and likely to be watching CBeebies rather than James Bond . . .

Sure, some will be watching superhero films, spy fims etc, but there's such a wide range at that age. As it happens, my dd would be very happy with a spy theme, but I'm still quite content with her teacher's choice of topics!

Yes, even at 8. All the boys in DS1's class were playing superhero games in the playground years before that, and it's important that they learn to think critically about things like using violence to solve problems, whether one person can decide on how the world should be, the dodgy gender relations, etc. Even kids watching cbeebies at 8 will encounter versions of superhero tropes, and it can help them to understand ideas and arguments they come across in both fiction and non-fiction.

DamselInDisguise has just said, in a far more succinct way, everything that I've been trying to say.

Eight is certainly not too young to be developing critical thinking skills - my dd's frequent diatribes about perceived injustices at home and at school show that she and her friends do not just passively accept what they are presented with - and to my view it seems far preferable to engage with the issues rather than run away from them. A piece of homework entitled "why James Bond is a load of distasteful, sexist tosh" would do that.

But how are they meant to do that without watching the films or reading the books (which are even more unsuitable for an 8 y/o)?

That's a serious question, btw.

I may be missing a point here, but it seems to me that the homework is about researching a Bond villain and making a presentation. The point is research. One can research in many ways. A starting point could be Wikipedia (that's not academic research but for a supervised 8 year old..). There is a list of all the villains there. Cross referenced with the novel they appear in, the film, cultural references, parodies of the character etc.. I must admit the thought of watching the film would be the last on my list. Some you tube snippets of the villain would suffice. I suspect the teacher will be more impressed with quotes from the material Ian Fleming novel.

And what about those kids with no internet at home, and whose parents don't have the time/inclination to provide supervised homework?

Actually, I'm probably being unfair there, I think the OP did say they'd done some stuff on the internet at school, so maybe they were meant to use that.

They can use other sources. For example, you get superheroes and spies in all kinds of books, comics, cartoons, films. For example, the platypus in phineas and ferb. You can find newspaper articles that make comments based on assumed common knowledge of superhero or spy tropes. You can use encyclopaedias and online sources.

You don't have to sit your 8 year old down in front of The Quantum of Solace or The Dark Knight in order to learn about these things.

Then, as they get older and start to come across more and more of these kind of materials, they'll have developed skills for interrogating them critically.

We still have public libraries for kids without Internet access, and the school probably has measures in place to help kids do there homework where their parents have refused to take them or help them in some way.

Bond makes a good spy homework topic because it's the sort if thing parents are likely to know about and may be enthusiastic to help with. They're less likely to know about the spies found in the texts they'll actually be reading at school.