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...

Haven't trawled through the entire list of Bond movies but the earliest Sean Connery ones are rated PG (incredible considering the adult content - including some very misogynistic lines) while Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies are rated 15 (surprising as these two seemed mild in comparison to later ones or the earliest ones). Die another Day, Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale are rated 12. I would not be happy for an 8 year old or even 10 year old to be watching Bond films - and certainly not analysing villains to write an essay about them.

Even some might query that the notion of espionage/spying as a career or practice is a rather grey area: a person basically lies or stalks for a living. As adults we acknowledge why certain actions/roles/departments are necessary but these are 8 year olds trying to learn right from wrong. Ho hum. What ever happened to writing about heroes - good samaritans, teachers, nurses, paramedics, etc etc.....or children's story characters?!!

PS. I don't have a problem with Dangermouse and Spy Kids for Reception though! (The children aren't being asked to analyse complex villains with sordid levels of morals/inhumanity in those.) It's a bit of superficial fun, and invisible ink and torches aren't morally dubious.

I wouldn't mind an 8 year old being asked to analyse Dangermouse villains. Or Bugsy Malone.

Therefore, presumably, intending that they will, um, research said villain.

But that isn't their homework and for all you know the teacher will be presenting them with highly censored information sheets already researched or that they will be conducting their own research from books like the Usbourne one ...

I'm not sure it is accurate to describe the Bond character as a woman hater (lover of women perhaps - not even sure that chauvinistic is accurate given that there are strong female roles - certainly he is a seducer of women but 8 year olds won't be exploring that line)

But, SouthoftheThames, it's now been established that the 'research' was to find a picture, not to write an appreciative essay. An 8 year old's idea of spying is going to be informed by DangerMouse and the Usborne Book of Spies, not by the Bourne Identity. You're assuming that a child has an adult's knowledge and an adult's view of the world, but the ethical dilemmas of espionage won't be part of a child's consciousness and I very much doubt that any class discussion will go in that direction.

Anyway, the homework was due yesterday so this is all by the by.

Hi Panelmember - OP said the homework sheet said otherwise - so now I'm confused as to the premise of the whole thread now!...........I think the school homework nowadays is confusing not because it's more difficult or original, because the instructions are unclear in the first place. (When I was at school, my parents never discussed my homework with other individuals like we see discussions happening here on MN - they didn't even get involved at all because they didn't need to. The instructions were simple, straightforward, and could all be worked out from the text book... still needed the work to be put in, but they weren't confusing.)
I do accept what people have said about 8 or 9 year olds possibly having a more childish approach to some mature concepts, but it wouldn't be the first time an 8 year old (even some 6 or 7 year olds in my family have done so) picked up an Encyclopaedia Britannica off the shelf at home to research or just read about a homework topic and become completely horrified or traumatised as to what the topic was really about! -so that's the point of my protesting against this kind of homework.
Or as a fellow mum told me, many kids in her (older) children's classes now are so worldly that they know about Playstation, reality tv, prices of cars, and topics like James Bond and so on, but haven't a clue about simpler things like where potatoes come from, the lyrics of simple nursery rhymes and how milk is obtained...

The sheet sent home said 'Choose a Bond villain to research for a presentation on Friday'

Like a twat, I assumed that was what it meant

The teacher burbling on about how all she meant was find a picture was arse-covering bollocks designed to shut me up, if you ask me.

I agree, Queenof. It quite clearly means that the students should research said villain and not simply march into class and say ' I chose Jaws - homework: done.' And the bit about finding a picture - if that is what she had wanted the children to do, that is what she would have written on the sheet. It says to me that she clearly realised the homework was inappropriate and was worried that you were going to take it further.

I have found some opinions on this thread quite depressing actually; the idea that James Bond films with their themes of chauvinism and violence are suitable for eight year olds, the idea that encouraging students from an early age to use primary sources for research is 'pontificating'...

I'm with you Queen - I'd be pissed off too. We try fairly hard to make sure ds's (9 and 7) pretty much stick to PG-type films but the pressure put on us by ds1 in particular for him to watch Casino Royale and the other more recent Bond films is huge - of course all his friends have seen them...

I love a good Bond film but there's no way I'd let ds1 watch them and setting homework like this would just be used as ammunition by the little sods darlings...

Also agree about times tables - why don't they have to learn them by rote like we did...?? (v. old person alert). I'm crap at maths but the one thing I can do is give any multiplication up to x 12 in a nanosecond, 'cos I bloody well learned them!

But DottyDot they are PG films

I can't speak for your child's school or for the OPs but we teach tables by rote and most of my Y2s know all their tables 2-12

CowardlyLion - I haven't suggested that unlimited access to Bond films is a good thing but, given that the BBFC has given several of them a PG certificate, then anyone who had reservations about Bond as a homework topic could if they so chose find and use a clip from one of those. I agree absolutely that, as a matter of best practice, primary sources are far preferable to secondary sources but again, for anyone who wanted to avoid even a snippet from an original book or film, then using secondary sources for just this one piece of homework seems like a reasonable compromise if they so chose. I stick to my description of 'pontificating' for those talking about an 8 year old's homework as if it were a PhD thesis.

But who is talking about it as if it were a PhD thesis?

Some of us are talking about getting students into good research habits but that's not quite the same thing. If it were, I suspect most of my L6 set should have a PhD by now, for a start...

Probably being a bit provincial here (!) by asking "is it too much to ask that the schools at least goes through the whole lexicon of wonderful children's topics like Black Beauty/Heidi/Jungle Book/Bible figures/Winnie the Pooh/Grimms Fairy Tales/etc before moving on to pop culture?" - and, if they've already worked through all those, including Aesop Fables and fables from Russian/Spanish/Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Pacific/African/Eskimo culture and now they've run of ideas and want to be a bit left-field and dive into pop culture, fine. But I think it's a pity that in such a short school year and childhood, if they spend lots of time on James Bond but don't learn about Aladdin or Robinson Crusoe, then the pupils have been a bit shortchanged. Many of the traditional stories have useful life lessons - can't say I feel the same about any Bond film, although one or two X-Men and Terminator movies (once you get over the violence!!) did have a few "moral" bits that one could learn from - though maybe not for an under 12 year old.

High five to Dottydot and OP. (sorry, mrz and panel - obviously you guys have already finished all the children's classics and am dawdling behind with Black Beauty).

No apologies necessary, SOTT. This is an exchange of views which, inevitably, are different.

I've said enough on this thread already, the homework (if it was done at all) has been handed in and this is definitely my last post here, but I have to say that I think you've missed the point. The theme of the term wasn't James Bond, it was spies, and I strongly suspect that it took in a great deal more than James Bond and was more informed by DangerMouse and the idea of solving riddles and codes than by the world of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I don't think you're being parochial, but wonder whether you are falling into the trap of wanting your child's childhood to be exactly like your own. What strikes me about your list of ideal works for the children to study is that nearly all were written a hundred years ago or more. The one exception is Winnie the Pooh, who is merely 85. Perhaps we live in different places where the children have different ideas and preferences, but no 8 year old of my acquaintance would want to study Pooh at school, having read it or had it read to them years before. I notice too that you comment on what you and I, rather than our children, are reading.

I am very open to arguments about age-appropriateness - as I said, I think there are ways of dealing with Bond in an age-appropriate way but views will differ on this, I know - but I don't think the answer lies in sticking with the canon of children's literature written a century ago. And I certainly am not a fan of violent films - I have to defer to your knowledge of X Men and Terminator films because I have never watched one.

Well this year my Y2 class have studies Alice's adventures in Wonderland, The Tempest and George's Marvellous Medicine but next term we are going to read Jolly Roger and the Pirates of Captain Abdul ... something from this century

Sorry, panel - you're probably groaning to see this: I was going to leave the topic alone and then found then it had been commented on quite recently! I do realise I'd picked everything from a long time ago, (the titles that came off the top of my head) but I guess what I was referring to was just a good book, poem or play, not a story that had been planned by board members, executives and accountants intent on making lots of profits from movie sales. Yes, I like the sound of mrz's list - incl George's Marvellous Medicine, Jolly Roger and Pirates of Captain Abdul. No need to reply unless you feel you want to, just thought both of your posts deserved an acknowledgement.

The films are funny, and you can laugh at the obvious sexism: it's obvious enough to be not very threatening, I think. This homework sounds more amusing than most.