Teaching Family History in Schools

[JAP]

Guy,

I certainly see what you mean.

But Magistra,

I think you have it spelled out brilliantly.

A few tries on "important" people will soon show your school class how simplistic the whole idea of "important" is!  And let's hope they will proceed from there and start to research less "important" people including their own ancestors.

Of course, a few pupils will have started immediately with researching their own ancestors - and those are the ones who will soon start involving their classmates.

And, as the "important" lot will already have found some 'scandals', eyes might well have been opened ...

Though not sure what, if you are in some English village which hasn't changed much, the discovery of one's ancestors being vassals to the still present Lord of the Manor might mean!!!

JAP

[suttontrust]

I taught for 20 years.  I taught in some of the most deprived wards in the country.  Do not, please Guy, call me blinkered.  Yes, the children often know each others' circumstances.  But those circumstances are often very painful and complex.  I speak as one whose father cleared off when I was 6 and I found it easier to say he was dead.  There are children living in mixed families where neither adult is their biological parent. 
Okay, I can't stop you.  I will just say that there are many good ways to teach history without risking the sort of damage this can do.  And the sad part is that you may cause tremendous hurt and never know it.

[Guy Etchells]

Likewise my father too and yes it was easier to say he was dead, not because it was painful but to avoid the sympathy. When one said he was dead more often than not the adult would find another victim to sympathize with as they were so embarrassed at broaching such a subject with the poor dear.

But there again I was in an environment where many of the kids would perhaps not see either parent from one years end to the next or only see one or other for a week or two.

Facing facts never hurt any of them secrets did.

Talking in hushed tones of illegitimacy leads to the illegitimate child feeling that they have done something wrong because their parents never married.
Open discussions about such facts lets the child see they are not alone it is simply another fact of life just as some children have parents of different nationalities. Some children's fathers are doctors some are binmen, some parents work some don't.
Facts of life when spoken about openly don't cause anguish & pain, but when whispered as secrets cause misery.
Cheers
Guy
Forgot to add.
I have had adoptive children write to me asking how to research the family history of their adoptive parents as they are the parents who mean more to them than their blood parents. Some mention they are luckier than most as their parents chose them rather than just accepted an accident of birth.

[suttontrust]

Guy, I don't think we need to quarrel, but we have to disagree.  I am not only talking about myself (I didn't know I was illegitimate until I was 21, and if I'd gone home from school and asked about my father it would have caused great problems) but about the children I've known over the years who didn't know about their family background and simply could not have asked.  The children are not keeping secrets - the parents are, for a variety of reasons which teachers have no right to intrude on.  Facing facts?  Who is being asked to face facts, and at what stage in their lives?  And what right do unrelated adults have to demand that those facts are faced?

[Guy Etchells]

Nothing wrong in disagreeing, accepting that others hold different points of view is a basis of learning.

I was born after my mother's marriage to her second husband, my eldest brother was infact a half-brother being the son of her first husband. My middle brother is illegitimate being born before the marriage of our father to our mother and my sister after.
My mother was even mentioned in a book about her first husband in a very uncomplimentary manner, but that was never kept a secret from us.

We as adults have a duty to children - all children - that they are not punished for the actions of their parents.
I feel very strongly that that duty involves displaying that there is no shame in being born out of wedlock.

I remember the days when condoms were secretive things talked of in whispers and euphemisms. How much better it is today when condoms are displayed in garages, chemists etc. instead of being hidden away. They have changed from being dirty objects of derision to acceptable items.

The pain I see comes in emails and letters I get from people who have been told of their illegitimacy later in life often only after their biological father has died and that has destroyed their relationship with their mother and "adoptive" father as they feel they have been lied to.
Cheers
Guy

[carol sea]

It would be lovely to be able to do this sort of thing  in school, but as a teaching assistant who often has to 'pick up the pieces' when children are upset, I think that asking young children to look into thier own family history could be a really risky idea,especially in a primary school. Not only do some children not know who their father is, what about those who are adopted, or, as in my own case, have a deceased parent when they are still very young? I would have been devastated to be asked to produce this kind of homework..much too painful and probably even more difficult after my father remarried.
Needs a very careful approach.
Carol

[Magistra]

I had my Grade 9s do a family tree a few weeks ago.  They're reading a novel about someone who wants to find out who her parents are, and from where she comes.
The instructions to the students were to find as much information as they could about their relatives, and not to be embarassed by anything they unearthed.  (I gave some particularly odd details about my own relatives to preface this). 
Absolutely everyone in the class completed the assignment without protest.  As usual, some kids did FANTASTIC work and marvellous research, while others were able only to find the dates of birth of their parents, and were feeling pretty proud of themselves when they named all their cousins by name. 
One girl was initially not keen on the project, explaining that her mom had ten siblings, and all led complicated lives.  I told her to find out as much as she could, and maybe do five relatives in detail.  Contrary to my wildest expectations, she and her mom got so involved in the project, that she made a MASSIVE poster of all her relatives back five generations!  She says that her whole famiy is suddenly very interested in genealogy, and over Spring Break, she and her mom are making a scrap book.

So, happily, no harm done, and all students did very well on the assignment, regardless of how elaborate their findings were.

[carol sea]

Magistra

[carol sea]

Hi Magistra
So pleased that your class took to the idea and enjoyed it.It's always great to hear about parents becoming involved, especially since I work in an area where lots of parents would much rather be in the pub or doing drugs.
I can only speak from my own experience,(not of booze and drugs, I hasten to add) so am rather biased I'm afraid.
 I think that genealogy in general is a fantastic thing  (obviously!) to teach in schools but would always offer the children the opportunity to research someone other than their own family, for the reasons I mentioned in my last post.
Lastly, well done for being enthusiastic enough to want to share your knowledge of the subject with your class and not being 100% bound by what the curriculum demands!!
Carol