School-Holidays Homeschooling

I am becoming a half-term/school holiday blogger!  Since Tiger started school and I started full-time work, our time together has been limited to weekends and school holidays, much like most families.  While I miss certain aspects of our homeschooling life, such as having control over our own time and working to our own schedules, I am happy to report that Tiger has settled very well in school and has made a number of good friends.

Tiger has three weeks off school for the Easter break, so between my husband and I, we managed to cover the half-term child care arrangements using a combination of sleepovers for Tiger, alternate days off and working from home.

I feel as though I dropped back into my homeschooling mode on my days off, taking Tiger to various activities and field trips.  He spent a few days climbing, playing table tennis, and practising archery.

When we were still homeschooling last year, Tiger became very interested in the study of geology, specially fossils.  We had planned to visit the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences but somehow never got round to it, but we finally made it there during this holiday.

While we were back in the swing of 'half-term homeschooling', and looking at fossils and prehistoric life, we went to Cromer,

near West Runton where a very exciting prehistoric Rhino skull has been found recently.

We were there to see the collection in Cromer Museum.

We also went along to the Lynn Museum to look at a significant Bronze Age monument,

the Seahenge.

The Lynn Museum is quite a remarkable little museum.  Not only does it house the Seahenge, which can be considered a water-based, timber version of the Stonehenge, the museum also holds an impressive collection of artefacts from prehistoric times through to the 20th century, including the skeleton of a Anglo Saxon warrior who was buried with his shield boss and spearhead.

When we studied Victorian Britain, and especially of Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist, we looked briefly into the workhouse system and peeped through the gates of a disused workhouse building in London near Dickens' residence.  While in Norfolk, we finally went inside an actual workhouse that is now the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum.

While previously we were under the impression that the workhouse was a unanimously oppresive place,

our visit to the Gressenhall Workhouse Museum has changed our minds somewhat, as we read accounts of a few previous inhabitants who were given help at the workhouse that they would not have had otherwise.  For example, young children in the workhouse were given lessons who would otherwise have had to find work as chimney sweeps or who would end up as street urchins.  There was also the account of a boy who had lost his legs due to an accident and who was given artificial limbs at the workhouse, and was given lessons such that he went on to become a teacher's assistant, got married and had a family of his own.

Of couse, I realise that such success stories are few and far between.  For 99% of the workhouse population, entering the workhouse is very similar to being given a life sentence where one is stripped of one's freedom and dignity.

Was It a Fair Trial? Part 2 of 2

While things are pretty grim for the poor children (as we saw in part 1), the Victorian law did not treat kindly the working class adults either, it seems.

This time, we learnt about another Victorian trial, based on yet another real case, in the Ancient House Museum.

Before the actual case was presented to us, we were given a brief introduction to life (for the servants) in a Victorian household, which included a hands-on activity to make butter from cream demonstrated by the 'senior' kitchen maid,

and a demonstration on how laundry was done by the 'junior' maid:

The children were also shown a number of items commonly used in a Victorian household which they had to figure out what those items were used for:

The above activities were to give us the context in which the case we were to encounter was set.  The four main characters involved in the case were:

1.  the lady of the house - a rich widow whose son was the mayor of the town, and who discovered that one of her rings was missing from the mantle piece in her bedroom;

2.  the master sweep - a man who used to be a chimney sweep and who ran a business hiring out chimney sweeps.  He used to sweep the chimney for the house as a child so he knows the servants of the family very well.  He is going out with the junior maid and wants to marry her but he does not have enough money to do so.  He is known to have a drinking problem, and had been caught a few times for minor theft.

3.  the senior maid - who worked in the house for over 30 years, almost like a housekeeper.  She does not have a high opinion of the chimney sweep.

4.  the junior maid - a very young girl who has only started working for the family for a few years.  She has been seeing the master sweep for nearly a year and wants to marry him.

The case was presented to us in a drama/reenactment such that we were witnessing the scene as it unfolded (i.e. when the lady discovered that her ring was missing) and listened to each character's account to the policeman of where they were and what they claimed to be doing during the time up to the police being called to the house.

Unfortunately for the master sweep who seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and since he had no real business to be in the house other than to see his sweetheart, the junior maid, he was the instant suspect so he was apprehended by the policeman for having the ring in his coat pocket (photo 1) and was locked up in a cell as he waited for a trial.

While he was in his cell (photo 2) and had nothing better to do, he spent his waiting time telling us something about his background as a chimney sweep.  He explained how he had to get into tight positions when sweeping the chimney (photo 3) and that he could only do it up to the age of eight because he was getting to big by then to be able to get up the chimney.  He had a cutout cardboard frame that was used to measure whether a child would be suitably small enough to be useful as a chimney sweep (photo 4).  While all the children present had a go at seeing whether they could fit through the frame, only three or four of the smaller ones qualified.

When the trial was finally made, the judge listened to everyone's account and after some consideration, judged that the master sweep was guilty of theft.  Consequently, he was sentenced to ten years of hard labour, despite his vehement protest that he did not commit the crime.  This was the actual outcome of a real case that the workshop trial was based upon.

While everyone thought that was the end of the story, with most of us agreeding that the master sweep was indeed guilty of stealing the ring (based on his drinking problem, his past history of minor thefts, his desire to marry), we were told of what actually happened, which I find to be quite disturbing.

The master sweep was innocent!

What happened was that the junior maid had stolen the ring and slipped it into the master sweep's coat pocket without his knowledge.  Her plan was to have the master sweep find the ring in his pocket once he had left the house, assuming that he would then take it to the pawn shop to get the money necessary to marry her.

What she hadn't expected was for the lady of the house to be looking for that particular ring that morning (as the lady had many other rings to wear), and for the situation to spiral out of her control.  She kept quiet throughout the trial to save her own skin, and watched in silence as the master sweep was condemned to ten years of hard labour.

The records taken from the village's archives showed that, after the trial, the junior maid continued to work in the household for another few years before she married someone else and moved to another place.  Meanwhile, the wronged master sweep did indeed serve ten years of hard labour for a crime that he did not commit, after which he came out of prison a broken man and drifted from place to place without ever settling down at any one place for long.  He died after a few years out of prison.

I was shocked after being told the truth of what actually took place.  I am not sure what I am more disturbed by: that someone (the junior maid) could let an innocent man (someone she was going to marry!) go to jail on her behalf, or that I, along with many others in that workshop, was too quick to judge and was too sure of what I thought was right.  The thought of potentially inflicting injustice upon an innocent man is utterly mortifying.

Was It a Fair Trial? Part 1 of 2

A large part of our study of Victorian England seems to revolve around the plight of the poor, especially of poor children.  Charles Dickens' story, Oliver Twist, showed us the world of the working class where poverty, oppression and crime go hand-in-hand.

To get a better sense of what happened to the Victorian poor when they were caught in the cycle of poverty and crime, we participated in a mock trial based on an actual Victorian case in the restored Victorian courtroom in the town of St. Albans.

The courtroom trial was done following proper Victorian courtroom procedures (see photos above), with three witnesses called to stand in turn to give their account (photo 2), the defendant making his case (photo 4), and the prosecutor giving his case (photo 5).

The trial was based on a real case that took place in the Victorian times that involved a 14-year-old street urchin who was accused of theft by the local butcher.  We sat through the trial, listening to all sides of the story given by various parties, and finally the actual verdict that saw the child being sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour.  The sentence would have taken effect immediately with the child being put in a prisoner's uniform:

and being locked up in one of the cells situated below the courtroom.

The workshop leader then led a discussion that had us consider two important points:

1. to compare the Victorian sentence of a minor for theft to the current legislation for a similar crime;
2. how the difference in social classes between the judge (middle class) and the accused (working class) would have contributed to possible biases against the accused's account of innocence.

We were all quite dismayed by the harshness of the sentence the Victorian boy received, given that there was no clear evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) to make him the undisputed perpetrator.  However, that seems to be the fate faced by the Victorian working class, as we shall see in another case in part 2.

Puff Away!

Victorian Britain was a time for many social changes (as seen by the efforts of various social reformers such as Charles Dickens) as well as great inventions.  One of the many amazing feats of Victorian engineering was the steam engine, which led to the rapid development of the steam train, which in turn enabled much movement of labour from the countryside to towns as the pace of the Industrial Revolution quickened and changed the nature of work for many people.

There are many preserved steam trains around the country, mostly run by enthusiasts.  We went to the Colne Valley Railway to experience what the railway system was like in the Victorian times.

There were various displays on site that related to railway life in the Victorian times but we were most fascinated by a restored steam engine that was used to pull plows in the fields.

It helped that the men who restored it to good working condition were there to explain the mechanics of how the steam engine worked.

As we went on the platform, we saw the steam train waiting to depart the station, so we went up to the driver's carriage and had a chat with the driver and the coal man who kindly showed us how to shove coal into the boiler.

We watched the train depart and come back to the station,

before we boarded the train to look at it, whereupon the burly ticket inspector came on board as well and asked to see our tickets, which we didn't have!  Luckily, Tiger managed to charm his way out of trouble by asking clever questions of the inspector about his job and the workings of the train, which evidently distracted the man so much that he forgot all about the tickets and proceeded to show Tiger a periscope-like instrument on the train that enabled the inspector to look at several carriages at one time, which sounded like a predecessor of the CCTV cameras!

We met a kindly gentlemen in another carriage who taught us all about the development of the Penny Black, as well as showing us his interesting stamp collection and taught us how to value them.

Further along, we came upon the mail carriage, which acted as a mobile post office where mails were weighed and sorted by counties.  Of course, back in the Victorian times the post office would have had its own train (we saw an abandoned Royal Mail train on site) rather than sharing its carriages with normal train travellers.

Stepping off the train, we went into the control rooms on the platform.  The rooms have been changed into a mini museum now where artefacts from the station's previous active use are showcased.  The exhibits also trace the rise and decline of the station use over the previous 100 years.

Before we left, Tiger had a go at working the signals by hand. 

Most young boys, at some point in their lives, must have dreamt of being a train driver.  When that doesn't happen, being the signal man probably comes in at a close second in terms of enjoyment.

Finishing Up the Hound

When we started looking into the Sherlock Holmes series, I used the related Boomerang back issue of The Hound of the Baskervilles to get a little more out of the story than just reading it for fun.

It took us more than the scheduled four weeks to complete the study.  The reason for the delay is partly due to our going out a lot, and partly due to the dictation passages being very long and rather difficult.  And since I think the dictation passages are difficult, I decided to do it in a buddy system with Tiger, in that we will take turns to do the dictation passage so that he would not feel as though he had to suffer through a difficult task alone.

The way we did it for the first three weeks' dictation was to have Tiger read the passage out loud to me twice before I recite it back to him.  The rule is that I could not start writing until I could recite the entire passage without any error.  This proved to be much harder than I had originally anticipated it to be.  It took me several attempts before I could start writing the passage down.  Even so, I still managed to get a few errors in my dictation, which Tiger was only too glad to point out.

By arrangement, I always did the dictation first.  This was to give Tiger the time to listen to and memorise the dictation passages while I struggled through mine, so that by the time it was his turn to write the passages down, he was able to memorise entire paragraphs with very little problem.  Given the length and difficulty of the passages, I think this is a fair way to encourage a child to complete a task that would otherwise seem insurmountable.

When we came to Week Four's passage, I decided that it was just too long to even try to do a successful dictation of it at this stage, so we used the passage for copywork instead.  Tiger does all his dictation and copywork in the handwriting exercise books where he can practise his penmanship at the same time.

While the passage in Week Four concentrates on the description of the hound in the story, we did a little research to establish what kind of hound it was and came to the conclusion that it would have a cross between a bloodhound and a mastiff, which can be a rather frightfully vicious dog, especially when it was painted with luminous paint, as in the story.

To spare us from having nightmares about being chased by luminous-coated mastiff-crossed hounds, Tiger decided to end the study by making his own stop motion animation version of the scene that we had just studied, using paper cutouts as his back drop for the moors, plasticine for the hound, and an unfortunate LEGO man for the victim.

I won't mind running into Tiger's colourful version of the hound.  It seems harmless enough and does not even have teeth, and it reminds me of a soppy St. Bernard which, incidentally, is from the mastiff family!

Attending a Victorian Village School

While Tiger has not spent any time in the schools here (or anywhere else, for that matter), we are both very curious about what really goes on in the schools here, especially in the Victorian times, so we jumped at the chance to attend a Victorian school for a day.

The school that we went to is located  at the Stibbington Day Centre, which was a former school in the Victorian days, so the surrounding and atmosphere are all very quaint.  In addition, for a quintessentially Victorian experience, the children were all asked to dress up in Victorian school-children fashion and were given a Victorian identity (based on real students' register held in the school archive) upon arrival that they were to assume for the day.  Thus, Tiger became 12-year-old 'Arthur Liquorish' on that day.

We arrived early so the children had some time to play with the Victorian toys that the workshop leader had very kindly put outside for this purpose.

Suddenly, the headmaster appeared so all the children had to line up in one straight line before they were allowed to enter the school building.

There was more lining up to be done once inside the building.  The children were told to stand in two separate lines: boys on one side, girls on the other, and to arrange themselves in an orderly fashion from the shortest to the tallest.

The fun began once the children were inside the classroom.  Again, boys and girls were seated separately.

So what did Victorian children learn in school on any given day?

They learnt:

1. spelling (of words such as 'obedient', 'punctual', 'diligent')
2. currency addition (to know that 20 shillings = £1, and the resulting sums from adding different currency amounts together)
3. about the British empire
4. times table
5. about the royal family
6. handwriting
7. simple arithmetic

Having a basic lesson is one thing, but you haven't been in a Victorian classroom if you haven't experienced some of the formidable discipline ushered out by the teacher!

Discipline starts with school rules (photo 1), of course.  If that is not enough, there's always the cane (photo 2) at hand.  Even if you were very obedient, if you can't answer simple questions (the discretion lies with the teacher), you would be made an example in front of the class by being called a dunce (photo 3).  Also, there are ingenious ways to assist children to sit up straight such as placing a wooden board behind their backs and making them hold it in place with their arms (photo 4).  For children who can't sit still, tying their hands behind the chair with a rope (photo 5) can work miracles.

When I was in school, I saw school rules being enforced and the cane being used a few times (on boys only, never on girls), but the methods shown in photos 4 to 6 were new to me.

After a humble school lunch of cheese sandwich which consisted of one slice of bread with one piece of cheese (I'm sure boys at the Victorian public schools had better lunches), the teacher led the children outside to do some physical exercises to 'strengthen their minds and bodies', before the school day ended.

Once the school day was over, everyone could relax and we proceeded to do a study about the surrounding village.

The workshop leader guided us through a one-hour walk in and around the village while explaining to us the changes that had taken place at various significant locations since the Victorian times, and how those changes have impacted the lives of the villagers.

We then stopped at the church, as it was a significant gathering venue in the village (nearly everyone went to church in the Victorian times) and still holds the register of the village.  We listened to a number of stories about people who lived in the village before going out to the churchyard to look for tombs of the families bearing names of the identities that the children were assigned to in the morning.

All the walking around in the village and looking at gravestones were in preparation for some family history work to be done back in the school hall.

Using the information gathered from the tombstones, stories about changes in the village, and register in the church, the children were taught to think about their own family tree as a starting point to investigate family history.

After some discussion, the children were given additional source documents (such as pages of the census conducted in 1891 and 1901, and the school log book) with information pertaining to the families whose children went to Stibbington school in the 1800s from which they learnt to deduce what happened to some of the children, such as there was a year in which the village suffered from the spread of a disease whereby a number of small children from the school died, or that a few children had to leave school at eleven or twelve years old to help earn an income for the family.

This was one of the most fascinating field trips that we have been to because the workshop was so well delivered, with the children being taught what happened to real children in the actual venue of a former Victorian school, using actual source documents.  It is certainly how we like to learn history!


This post is linked up to the Carnival of Homeschooling #472.

A Visit to Dickens' Home

Having spent a fair bit of time immersing in the world of the Victorian poor through Charles Dickens' novels, it was time to visit Dickens' adult home in London, which is now the Charles Dickens Museum.

The inside of the house is very much preserved in the same condition as when Charles Dickens was living there.

Of all the rooms in the house, I found the kitchen to be the most interesting place, which probably has muchg to do with my having to spend most of my time at home in the kitchen!  Another eye-opening experience for us was seeing the wash basin in the laundry room that was used to keep the Christmas pudding (as was the practice in the Victorian times).

Two other items in the house also caught our eyes.  The first was part of the Marshalsea prison grille, which represented a very traumatic time in Dickens' childhood. The actual prison is long gone (as we saw on the Dickens tour a few weeks ago) but bits and pieces of it still remains in various locations, and the prison is vividly described in a number of novels, most notably in David Copperfield and Little Dorrit.

The second is a simple-looking window that was mentioned in Oliver Twist as being the window out of which Oliver Twist was pushed by Bill Sikes during the burglary.

The window is very small, so one can imagine how scrawny and malnourished the poor boy must have been to be able to squeeze through it!