What a great job

[OLL]

Just spent the last lesson with all my Tommy Atkins stuff doing a talk about the British Infantry and the Leicesters during WWII. the kids absolutely loved it!! even though most of them hadn't even heard of Leicester . Can't believe i get paid for this!

[Ian]

I have a job like you, I am a freelance living histoty lecturer, in Ancient Greeks, Roman Army, Vikings and WW2, this covers Key stage 2 History, I am also the Education Manager for an historic House, like you I enjoy teaching children history. That is why I enjoy re-enactment.

[Ian]

That should read Key Stage 2 History

[Whizz_Bang]

out of interest Ian / Oll, how do you think the curriculum handles sensitive matters of history?
specifically the 'nasty' bits, Holocaust etc.
are such events openly discussed to there full extent ? despite the distress it may cause ?

[OLL]

When i teach the Holocaust for example i do it warts n all. The only way to get across the horrors is to be brutally frank and honest. Of all the units we teach this has the most impact on children. They simply can't believe this went on!!

[Whizz_Bang]

Has warts n' all ever distressed anyone ?
I remember at high school a letter going home to explian the gravity & impact of what was being discussed, my parents had to sign a form of consent.

Ona side note... do you explain that other races suffered under the tyranny of 'nazism' ? Slavs, Gypsies, etc ?

W_B.

[Ian]

This is the sort of question you ask sitting around a campfire or over a pint, here goes.

I agree with OLL, with all the IT and pictorial evidence of the 20th century available to students, you cannot be selective with your information, give them the whole works and let them draw there own conclusions.

If you are talking about "nasty bits" that happened hundreds of years ago, there is less evidence and no surviving persons, so more leeway to arrive at several conculsion

[Ian]

Not having met you in the flesh whizz. how many years ago was that, opinions might have changed, you see and heare things like that on the news every day.

[Whizz_Bang]

OK, understood.... but history is VERY selective isn't it ?

I'm a firm believer that history has a habit of repeating itself, personally i see what we do as a reminder to the sanitised minds of today of the capabilities of mankind.
(before anyone jumps on my case, i know every nation has a dark side to its political actions over the years ).

Back to subject.... does the media saturation make it less impacting then ?
are kids less shocked because they play enless video games containing extreme violence ?


these questions are rhetorical by the way.... just trying to stir up some academic thought.

[dom]

Media saturation is what gets people killed. Always with a negative spin...

Academically, i have found that the sensitive subjects were always dealt with by showing them the whole truth, if you remember i went to Auschwitz and had to make presentations for all years. I made the presentations as graphic and as horrorifying as humanily possible to get my point across.
The more annoying point, though, is there is very little interest in something that happened so long ago, which, as you said, allows history to repeat itself.

However, whilst games with excessive violence are bad, WW2 games rock and, like SPR and BoB, have reintroduced a sense of actually wanting to learn about war and its effects.