Back In Time For School Anyone watching?

[ppeatfruit]

This is fab.

It's on BBC2 at 8pm . The children are lovely and the teachers, it's shocking that the left handed boy had his hand tied to his chair to stop him using it in the 1900s.

I thought it was very poor.

Why fussy ?

My DM (b1945) had her left smacked with a ruler anytime she used it for writing at school. She learnt to write with her right hand but was naturally left handed.

DeadZed That is terrifying.

I couldn't believe that the girls were learning how to make beds in 1903 and we were learning how to make beds in the 1960s

My DH had his left hand tied behind his back at school to force him to use his right hand. He was born in 1960. I was horrified when he told me as I thought the practice had died out decades earlier.

OMG BMW what type of school was it? That is abuse.

It is very sad how some people were treated in schools. I am going to watch the program later on catch up. I will be interested to see when things really changed. In my understanding children were poorly treated for many years.

So awful physically stopping them! I remember kids at my school (80s) being made to use knife and fork in 'correct' hands even though left handed, thought that was bad enough!

Not seen but might have a look on catch up. My sister was a lefty. She went to school in the 80s/90s. She was forced to use her right hand. If she used her left her work was ripped up and she had to start again. One teacher put a thick mitten on hers and another childs left hand and made them wear it ALL day.

Amazing the difference in schools WakeMe That is extraordinary , was it in England? DD1 was at school in the 80s and the teachers were kind and helped her with her lefty writing!! I'd 've been up there complaining if it had been otherwise.

I didn't rate this and I've enjoyed the others. I felt like they weren't really entering into the mindset - everyone seemed to be consciously play-acting, whereas in the family ones everyone has tried hard to stay in role. The students were very annoying and had been chosen to be "good on camera" - in other words, exactly the sort of attention-seeking nuisances that wouldn't have been tolerated in a Victorian classroom, and it irritated me that the teachers didn't deal with sarcastic comments and shouting out.

it just all felt like one of those dressing-up days primary school kids have where they get to play with slates and pretend to do drill.

TheFifthkey Of course they're pretending, should the teachers have used the cane then to make it authentic? It was bad enough tying the boy's hand to the chair and giving them brimstone and treacle. Oh and the gun practice seemed real enough.

I know it's pretending but in previous series they have all tried to go along with it with the attitude of the time. For example being appreciative and grateful when eating a very meagre dinner because they realised how much work it had taken to make. This series doesn't seem immersive enough - the teachers were apologetic about everything which I very much doubt Victorian teachers were! And the children were quite dismissive about it all and just seemed to treat it all as a big joke.

I disagree, they were upset about the way the Victorians viewed The Empire and "the savages" who lived in places like Australia and refused to be 'civilised'.

I like the children actually, the girls tried hard to do the sewing , even though some of them hadn't done any before. The boys enjoyed the proper home cooked food (not the tapioca) although I remember not liking that!

I think that being in a school environment (in the past) must be very different from being at home. They have probably been asked to contribute their opinions , nothing wrong in that, if they were all frightened to death like they would've been in real life they wouldn't have said anything!

I too have enjoyed the previous series and felt this one is different - with the others it felt as if they were more immersed in the time whereas here they are looking at it from the viewpoint of now. And things like the children calling out and talking among themselves wouldn’t have happened. I will watch the next episode but did feel disappointed after seeing the first one.

I wish the male teacher wouldn't wear a hat inside, that would never have happened in Victorian times. If they don't bother to get the little things right then the bigger things won't be taken seriously.

Yes, redredrobins, things like that take you out of it entirely. And one of the teachers didn't even attempt to use copperplate writing on the board which just seemed wrong.

Have to say I was disappointed. More like an end of term dressing up/messing about day rather than a serious TV documentary - and that was just the teachers who I thought didn't take it seriously at all. But I thought the kids were good as far as it went - some likable children rather than the usual awful attention seekers usually on school programmes.

Some of the background music was also written later than the period they were showing, which annoyed me a bit.

Children messed about even in the Victorian times! I liked seeing how little things have changed, (or how much) when did the Headmaster wear a hat I didn't notice?

Amazing to see that in the late Victorian times the secondary children were educated together including doing the same subjects and then suddenly everything changed which was down to the parents and inspectors! The boys really tried to do Latin it was sweet.

Very disappointed as I enjoyed the previous school related series which had teachers who seemed to stay in character whereas these ones seemed to be far too jolly and treated it all as play acting and having a good laugh and making comments on the attitudes of the time and much too matey with the schoolchildren . And yes of course Victorian schoolchildren might have been a bit cheeky but if caught they would have been punished which of course they couldn't be here ,and if their parents were told they would have got another hiding from them as well.So poor I won't bother watching the rest of the series.

Amazing to see that in the late Victorian times the secondary children were educated together including doing the same subjects and then suddenly everything changed which was down to the parents and inspectors!

Schools were originally only for the higher end of society, hence Latin etc. It was when schools were opened up more for "ordinary" people that they started being "dumbed down" to include everyday tasks such as cooking, bed making, etc - the first signs of taking away basic life-skills from their parents.

We have an old "free grammar school" building in our tiny village going back to the 17th century. It's history is fascinating. It provided a free education in the classics of Latin and Greek, science, etc financed by local landowner endowments. But, it also provided a "paid for" education in the 3Rs. The logic behind that was that it was down to parents to teach the 3Rs, domestic and trades skills, and if parents couldn't do it themselves, they had to pay for the school to do it, though it was a nominal/affordable amount.

I got the feeling that neither students or teachers spent much time in their roles, probably no more than a couple of hours for each era so they could play 'just pretend' for a short while. It would have been more realistic to have them spend at least a week, running to an accurate timetable.
I expect this whole series was filmed over one summer's holiday, so the same lack of conviction will run through each programme.