The sun sets on another day. Closer to another school at home week. Yes that’s right – no return to the classroom yet. Actually that might not be such a bad thing.

I’ve mentioned this before but I find some of the syllabus just completely baffling.

Hawklad loves History. He really loves History. I’ve never seen him ever find History anything other than awesome. He has a passion for it. Until now. Until the School History Programme. One third of the course is on Crime and Punishment. So far he has spent weeks learning about Jack The Ripper, Victorian violent crime and Capital Punishment. He has months more of this to come.

Yesterday Hawklad said that he was finding this all seriously disturbing. It was making him really anxious and stressed out. A few phrases struck home

“I found some of the images really disturbing.”

“Some of the crime descriptions and autopsy details I just can’t get out of my mind.”

“It’s putting me off History…..”

This is school history, it’s not criminology, it’s not a Stephen King Horror Novel. I know history will often have to cover really distressing topics but does that really have to include graphic details about a notorious serial killers crimes. Yes they are graphic….. Of all the history in the world to go for and the Authorities had to pick this. I know the Government has a bit of a fetish about Victorian times. They like to hark back to ‘good old’ Victorian Values. Why… Is it about the unrestrained power of the rich that is appealing or is it the downtrodden lifestyles of those without. Maybe it’s those in charge liking the idea of having Victorian punishment regimes at their finger tips. But whatever the reason, do we really have to suck our children’s education into this area as well.

“It’s putting me of History”. A subject he loves. Not on my watch…..

43 thoughts on “Crime and punishment”

      1. That is so disturbing. When our granddaughter was three, she was talking about a teacher at her pre-school. She said ‘I don’t know what is wrong with some people that they can be mean to little kids’. Poor baby knew more when she was three than some people ever do. She has been through all kinds of hell, is about to turn eighteen, and she is still the sweetest kindness person. Hawklad will be fine but chances are those school authorities will never be fit to set a school agenda. 😥

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      1. Totally. Daughter of a friend of mine is living in uk and she was telling me that they never teach the history of the battles for the throne on England!

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  6. Its ridiculous! Yes, there are horrible things that have happened in history, but graphic pics and serial killers, no one should have to study that!
    History is a wonderful subject, I loved it too. Give him other History lessons, you are exactly right in your last sentence.”Not on my watch!”

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  7. To think that anything that happened before today is history. So anyone can look at yesterday and say that was it or Skara Brae or Pyramids or at the living history of Ginkgo biloba and ferns…
    I’ve looked up a bit of our family history (unless my father was the milkman) and found some of interest. That apparently there was a relative from Stroma Island, who played the fool and got put off a ship heading for the Napoleonic War. The link below is to one of my historical blogs. Historical, as it was written last year (recent history) and that it was written about me being a child (ancient history). So, maybe Hawklad would be interested in his and your history BABASP? Write it together perhaps. What plants you planted, trees 🌲 🌳 you remember and see what they look like now via Google Maps on Street View.
    https://oversoil.wordpress.com/2019/08/08/hay-hey-not-again/

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  8. Just reading this and I’m just shaking my head. Autopsy details? Are they trying to scared kids out of schools or something? History was one of my favourite topics too. What is happening the UK? And considering the UK’s long History in the world. Autopsy photos? I’m sorry, I can’t get over that. I love the crime channel, and I can’t handle autopsy photos.
    The UK is turning into this weird state of things. There are politicians fighting to stop children getting puberty blockers (that have been around for 30+) years, but they think autopsy photos are appropriate? It’s just weird.
    I don’t get what’s happening in the UK.

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    1. Let me help ground you. Here is some history, in the form of a tree. Mother planted that pink blossom tree ages ago and here it is in 2009 looking pretty, but if you want to see it growing up until now, click on the timeline in the little box image. My bedroom was top left and had a horseshoe between the two windows. One day while sunbathing and falling asleep, I nearly fell off the bay window. So many thoughts about our short history in that house. On living in it for a while, doing it up, testing how to be a Guest House, then Mother not long after sold up (like the time she wanted to play shops). Still, it was an adventure of sorts.

      https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2496047,-0.8981719,3a,75y,82.1h,84.5t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-qhNhKrhXjnirwLkdjEPIA!2e0!5s20090401T000000!7i13312!8i6656

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  9. I think this is your asshole Minister of Education pushing his Authoritarian platform. He wants children to be so scared of what can happen to them that they never question what is really being done to them. And when one English child grows up to be a mass murderer in the footsteps of J the R, that Minister should be held accountable for putting these pictures into an impressionable young mind. Another 10 years, I predict, and James the Ripper will be striking fear into the hearts of London erst.

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      1. Is the horse whip still on the desk? If there is no change, then the direction is coming from even higher up than the Minister”s Office. Or from some unelected bureaucrat within it. I suspect the former. Boo the clown has has got to go!

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  12. Good grief! There’s so much wonderful Victorian social history to learn about. I remember loving the ‘How we used to live’ schools programme, which we had to watch in ‘real time’ since it was before the days of VCRs (almost back in Victorian times!).

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  17. Maybe, a silver lining in having him do school at home is that you can have some influence over what he studies… At least he’s not sitting in a classroom learning about all of this without your oversight. I agree with you and maybe you can substitute some lessons that would be more interesting and less traumatizing to him…with the teacher’s consent, of course! Our high school district has Elie Weisel’s Night on the reading list. I recently re-read it and I’m having a difficult time. So so sad. We want to protect our kids from the atrocities of the real world…at least for awhile. Thinking of you both.

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