Anne Frank: An RE class

We're learning about characteristics of heroes in RE currently, and this week discussed Anne Frank. We read a short biography about her and in between paragraphs discussed World War II, racism, and the Nazi party.

"Did Christians get killed by the Nazis?"
"Nope."
"Woo!!! Go Christians!!"
No, no, no. This is a sad story, not a football game, no one won the Holocaust.

We discussed the gas chambers.

"They dug big pits and threw them in where they were eaten by crocodiles!"
"Well, the Nazis did kill people in lots of different ways, but I don't think they did that."
"I maybe am getting them mixed up with the Egyptians."
"Maybe."

We looked at pictures of Anne Frank and the floor plan of the annex online. They wanted to hear some of the diary and one of the girls knew just where in the library it was, so she raced downstairs and back up again with the book in her hands. I read to them and they curled up on the floor listening.

"Is this a real story?"

Usually I answer that question like this: "Well, a lot of people believe it is true."

Today? "Yes."

Gender roles at Garden Time

In the playground my floaty, thin scarf was liberated by one of the tykes. She ran around with it over her face (it was see through) haunting people as a ghost. A little boy lifted up the side of it to poke his head under as well. She yanked the scarf away and ran off to haunt some others, and since neither child seemed put out I didn't say anything about sharing.

 

I kept an eye on her to make sure my scarf didn't end up in one of the mud puddles and eventually the scarf morphed (as all good dress up items do) from being protoplasm to being a princess skirt. She pranced around with it held tightly around her waist, dancing about the garden. The same little boy came over and lifted up the side of it to poke his head under...and this time? Was it okay? It's still a scarf. But since it was representing a skirt,and since he was a boy, and since she clearly didn't want him to put his head under her skirt...do I put a stop to it? Or is that just me projecting adult thoughts and motivations onto a pair of three year olds? (I suspect the latter) At the same time, at what point do we start teaching boys that when a girl says no, she means no. At what point do you go beyond saying "be nice to everyone and respect every one's space" and into "but particularly girls' because there is a massive history there that you don't yet understand."

 

I wouldn't have been that bothered by it, only giving that encounter a passing thought, except that I kept watching her the whole garden time (I really didn't want my scarf getting muddy) ("why didn't you take it back?" you may ask. I don't know. I just didn't.) And later on when the reception tykes rushed onto the field one of the bigger boys came over and grabbed her, wrestled her and kissed her. Is that still okay? Is that still rough housing? Or is that something where I should step in and say not okay. She fended him off just fine, and maybe I wasn't paying attention to other combinations of children where one is fending off another, maybe it is fine and this is just part of what happens. But should it be? She can take care of herself, but should she already have to?

Question

When is it appropriate or inappropriate to discipline someone else's child?

At the drop in nursery class in East London yesterday there was one child there with her mother who was being...bratty. She was maybe three I think and she was crying and grabbing at things that she wanted to play with- totally disrupting the class. If the child is a baby or under nursery age then I can totally understand the throwing fits- it's to be expected and it's okay. But in this case? She just wanted to play the drum and she wanted to play it now and that wasn't okay. And her mother was doing nothing about it other than looking a little helpless and explaining to me that her daughter wanted to play the drum. Yes. I see that. Are you going to tell her no?

So after a bit of self wrestling I eventually crouched down so that I was on the same level as the crying daughter and said "we're going to play with instruments later, not right now. If you'd like to play the drum, we can do that later in the class. But not now." Which actually, isn't even disciplining and is exactly what I would have done in my nursery classes before having one of the teachers take the kid away if they were going to keep disrupting class that much. And she stopped, and it was fine. So I guess my question is really more when do you just go ahead and take charge and when do you wait for the parent to do something about it? Because I don't want to step on people's toes, but I also don't want to stop the class because one child is throwing a fit because they're not getting their own way.