Remembrance Day Remembered

Poppy

Poppy we are but children small,

We are too little to do it all.
Children you may do your part.

Love each other is how you start.

Play without fighting.

Share your games and toys.

Be kind and thoughtful,

To all girls and boys.

I had a chance yesterday to attend a local high school to see its Remembrance Day assembly. I chose to go there because I was interested to observe the responses of teenagers to this day. I was told that the school presents the same assembly programme each year. I was impressed by the sincere attentiveness of the students to the programme as I feared that they might not be appropriately respectful. It seems, based on their comments, that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan has reawakened an appreciation for veterans.

I was taken back to the first Remembrance Day ceremonies that I attended when, dressed in my cub scout uniform, we marched in a parade on a crisp clear and cold November morning, down mainstreet and to the local Legion for the laying of wreaths. This occurred just a few short decades after the end of the Second World War--- my cubscout leader fought in it. It was a time when war was looked on with distaste, a reflection of the society at the time and its reaction to the events in Vietnam, yet Remembrance Day, while not a day to glorify war, was a day to celebrate the freedom of choice for us in Canada.

I also found this poem which was used in an elementary assembly. It is a simple poem that speaks to both Remembrance Day as well as social responsibility. I was told that while everyone knows there will be an assembly in the elementary schools, it "sneaks up" each year and often there is a scramble to put together an appropriate presentation.

I watched the ceremony from Ottawa. There was a change in the ceremony this year. Canada has one remaining war veteran from the Great War (the War to end all Wars [a misnomer if there ever was]) who is 108 years old. There was a Passing of the Torch ceremony ("To you, from failing hands we through the torch; be yours to hold it high") as this last veteran passed on the Torch to veterans of World War Two, The Korean Conflict, the peacekeepers of the 1960s-90's and the current forces in Afghanistan. As I watched this, I wondered what the young students think of when they consider Remembrance Day, aside from a day where there is no school. Will they relate this day to a day 90 years ago or to modern day? And what can we as teachers do so that World War One and all it stood for in Canada does not pale in significance like the War of 1812, a footnote in our history?