Politicising our children.

It was a famine and woukd have been mid 80 s, will check.

Just checked, it must have been Ethiopia. 🇪🇹

Thanks for the heads up Not.

I’m interested in what Glorianny would do in a school.
What are the rules where you work with regard to this subject Glorianny?
Do you adhere to the rules or invent your own?
If there are no rules how do you govern your own responses?
How would you explain your actions if questioned by the Head and governors?
How would you deal with parents who took exception to what you say?
What would you tell children who ask you a politically biased question (biased because they would more than likely present a question reflecting only their own viewpoint. Do you endorse their views if they match your own? What if they are in opposition to your views as posted on GN?

I wonder why people think that children are only aware of the pleasant things that happen around them and don't notice the bad things?
Children do know and can ask difficult questions.
So you need to be aware and to be able to deal with them.
For the child who wanted to strike I would offer her sympathy, show respect for her feelings and congratulate her on her attempt to try to influence things. I would then suggest that she should think carefully about what benefits her going on strike would bring to the conflict and ask if there wasn't some other action she could take. I'd steer her round to writing to the PM, raising money for a charity supporting Gaza and possibly asking the headteacher to say a prayer in assembly. Hopefully she'd use one of them.

I don't know if that answers all those things Mollygo
I have never and would never have brought my personal beliefs into the classroom. Although at assembly after the Iraq protest march the children did sing "Last Night I had the strangest Dream" but that was the deputy head's decision.

Awful.

Bit like the schools in Palestine teaching young children to hate Jews

My 11 year old grandson has been watching Newsround since he was about 8 and has very firm ideas about what is going on in the world. When I was 10 we were having elections at school because there was a general election going on. Most of us wanted to be anarchists so I don't know how that worked out in later life!

I remember wanting to donate my birthday money to the World Wildlife Trust and my mother getting very cross. Apparently I wasn't allowed to give away money that had been given to me, I was supposed to spend it.

GSM I was reading the papers from the age of about 6. I would have known about the crimes Hamas was accused of when I was 9 - and understood.
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When I was 9 we went to live in Hong Kong, then Singapore. At that time Mao Tse Tong had just taken over in China and every day brought horror stories of the torture and killing happening in China. Each day the train from Beijing would bring to Hong Kong, European and other nationalities, mainly missionaries who had been starved and tortured and their photos would be in the papers.

In Singapore the papers were serialising stories of the horrors of the Japanese Prisoner of War camps, again I read them all.

My parents were horrified when, as an adult, I told them. They thought they had kept the papers out of their children's way, but if a child wants to know or read something, at least in my case, itiss very hard to stop them.

9 year olds could certainly know about rape (even if they were not quite sure what it meant) and the dismembering of babies.

Deedaa

My 11 year old grandson has been watching Newsround since he was about 8 and has very firm ideas about what is going on in the world. When I was 10 we were having elections at school because there was a general election going on. Most of us wanted to be anarchists so I don't know how that worked out in later life!

I remember wanting to donate my birthday money to the World Wildlife Trust and my mother getting very cross. Apparently I wasn't allowed to give away money that had been given to me, I was supposed to spend it.

For some reason Year 6 children seem to go for very extreme views. Mine when we discussed smoking wanted to close all the cigarette factories, thought the government taxing cigarettes was disgusting and wanted them punished in some way, and wanted smoking made illegal.
Of course a couple of years later they were behind the bike sheds smoking away!!
I suppose they grew out of anarchy as well.

Glorianny 😁

Younger DGD was very anxious that we might be bombed by Russia when the war with Ukraine began. There had obviously been talk in the playground and they had Ukrainian refugee children in their school.

I used to read the newspapers when I was quite young, one news item I do remember was reading reports and seeing pictures of the North Sea Flood. I must have been about 7 but was very aware and worried we might get flooded.

I think we have to talk to young children, make them aware, but politicising them and encouraging them to take sides in conflicts and even protest when we may not know the minutiae ourselves is very wrong.

Photos of dead children and bodies being pulled out of rubble are bound to generate questions from schoolchildren.

Chardy

Photos of dead children and bodies being pulled out of rubble are bound to generate questions from schoolchildren.

Only if the parents are irresponsible enough to let them watch such things. Or they feel like brainwashing their children to their point of view. No responsible parent would allow a nine year old to suffer nightmares and possible psychological damage.

9 year olds could certainly know about rape (even if they were not quite sure what it meant) and the dismembering of babies.
This is neither required nor helpful in primary school in my opinion.
However, at secondary school, Year 7 onwards, of course education covers a wider range of key topics including consent, sexual exploitation, online abuse, grooming, coercion, harassment, rape, domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based violence FGM etc.

This is neither required nor helpful in primary school in my opinion.

I agree

They certainly learn more and much earlier than in the past.
It may be a good thing but sometimes I think they learn far more than might be necessary.

even if they were not quite sure what it meant
This comment really worries me. If pupils are not old enough to understand what is meant, is there any point of exposing them to it unnecessarily? It is surely advisable to teach younger children differently without the need for contested political views.

I remember when my niece was 3 and I took her to Southend for the day. Walking along the road she noticed the shiny patches of oil from cars on drives.She asked me what they were. I explained and this led to a serious of questions, all prefaced with what. When we walked along the front she wanted to know why the sea moved in and out. I explained about the tides and the moon and this led to more Whys?

Many children have enquiring minds and I don't think it's a good idea not to respond. Maybe not with the exact truth on occasion.

If children can be shielded from the absolute truth of war, then in my opinion they should be. None of my four grandchildren know anything about what’s happening in Israel, including the one who lives in England, because the national news in not on when they are around. Children of 11, 10, and 6 have no need of knowing about rape or babies being beheaded. That is not to say that any questions which might arise shouldn’t be answered in an honest, and age appropriate way. We have discussed with our grandchildren that their great grandfather fought in WW2 and they remember him in an appropriate way on Remembrance Day. Our 10 year old granddaughter has read the children’s version of Anne Frank’s Diary too. As far as I’m aware none of the children know anything about the current situation in Israel. They don’t read newspapers as their parents don’t buy them and they don’t own any devices.

Schools should never politicise things. Their job is to present a balanced view and teach students how to read critically and with an open mind. I was not happy recently on hearing that my grandchildren had been told to support a certain side in a recent referendum. Not the school’s business. I think things have deteriorated a lot since the time I was at school in this regard.

Yes Nanna8, and as we have seen, it would be difficult to present a non-biased picture to children if you hold strong views about a particular action, group or activity.

I will answer your question from yesterday, Glorianny, though I would like to listen to your answers to Mollygo's pertinent questions too.

I would answer a Year 6 child, and especially a Year 4 child, very sensitively and with scant detail on the situation in Israel and Palestine. I would not encourage class discussion because many children might be distressed, some might get the wrong end of the stick, and for others, it would be way beyond their maturity and comprehension. If one child were really interested, I might invite them for a private chat later.

Can I ask what materials and resources you would use in discussion with a class of 9 year olds? We know we can't trust even the news items and bulletins. You could find a resource online designed to support factual teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is a political issue. But will it be accurate, will quotes from political figures have been abridged, and will important contextual information have been omitted? Pupils of 9 years old will be unaware that the resource promotes a partisan political view.
In addition, could you be 100% sure that you could deliver a totally non-biased lesson when your own views were so strong as to colour any discussion, like we see on GN?

So, in short, if it were me, I would avoid discussion of the topic in a Year 4 or 6 class setting.

And I would imagine that most primary teachers on here would agree that any working teacher of a class of 9 year olds would not have the available time to properly research the subject anyway!

Joseann

I will answer your question from yesterday, Glorianny, though I would like to listen to your answers to Mollygo's pertinent questions too.

I would answer a Year 6 child, and especially a Year 4 child, very sensitively and with scant detail on the situation in Israel and Palestine. I would not encourage class discussion because many children might be distressed, some might get the wrong end of the stick, and for others, it would be way beyond their maturity and comprehension. If one child were really interested, I might invite them for a private chat later.

Can I ask what materials and resources you would use in discussion with a class of 9 year olds? We know we can't trust even the news items and bulletins. You could find a resource online designed to support factual teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is a political issue. But will it be accurate, will quotes from political figures have been abridged, and will important contextual information have been omitted? Pupils of 9 years old will be unaware that the resource promotes a partisan political view.
In addition, could you be 100% sure that you could deliver a totally non-biased lesson when your own views were so strong as to colour any discussion, like we see on GN?

So, in short, if it were me, I would avoid discussion of the topic in a Year 4 or 6 class setting.

I don't think I have said anywhere that I would discuss the situation with a class of 9 year olds. So your questions on the subject are unfounded. I have said what my approach would be to the child proposing to strike. She might of course be actively recruiting her friends, in which case I would take the same approach I have already outlined, possibly with a small group and only the whole class if the actions proposed were being widely discussed.
You apparently would ignore the children, possibly with a resulting strike.

My pacifist beliefs have been part of me for almost all my life. I have never brought them into the classroom. I do find it interesting that although no one would now dream of accusing a gay person of having an agenda, and being liable to indoctrinate children, accusing a pacifist is quite acceptable. It's almost as if war has become something we have to tolerate and anyone proposing that peace is important is seen as dangerous. What an odd situation.

maddyone

If children can be shielded from the absolute truth of war, then in my opinion they should be. None of my four grandchildren know anything about what’s happening in Israel, including the one who lives in England, because the national news in not on when they are around. Children of 11, 10, and 6 have no need of knowing about rape or babies being beheaded. That is not to say that any questions which might arise shouldn’t be answered in an honest, and age appropriate way. We have discussed with our grandchildren that their great grandfather fought in WW2 and they remember him in an appropriate way on Remembrance Day. Our 10 year old granddaughter has read the children’s version of Anne Frank’s Diary too. As far as I’m aware none of the children know anything about the current situation in Israel. They don’t read newspapers as their parents don’t buy them and they don’t own any devices.

Absolutely.
As parents it is our job to shield our children/grandchildren from such news.
They will have enough to worry about in adulthood.

I do remember during a lower sixth study period suggesting in a too loud voice, following an animated and uninformed discussion about the Bay of Pigs crisis that there was no point in doing our homework as we would all be dead the following day. The headmistress overheard, and I got a detention.

You apparently would ignore the children.
That is a laughable and unfair comment Glorianny in view of what I said.