DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Now, more than ever, Education.
So many emotions surround the senseless and barbaric acts that occurred in Paris this week. The tragic loss of life is simply unforgivable.
There appears no defence against those secured in their delusional certainty by theocracy. As talk of further conflict escalates, one further example of the collateral [and more subtle] damage is closer to home.
Now, more than ever, Education.
A tour, by students from Broadford Secondary College, continuing a 25 year tradition of the “Global Classroom“, over 18 months in the planning, was to depart for England, France and Belgium tomorrow the 20th of November. It will not proceed [sadly, but rightly so…]
www.bscbattlefieldstour.net.au
The tour was to provide students from this small country high school, the insights born of experience and context. “Living history” is an oft used [and often over-used] phrase, yet such experiences, I can attest, can be life changing. Both my daughter and son participated in the inaugural tour, conducted by the college, in 2013. To say the experience “broadened their horizons” would be an understatement.
Such programmes require enormous professional and personal commitment and dedication of teachers working with limited resources and equally trusting and supportive families willing to release the bonds of protection for the greater opportunity to “learn” and “know”.
Of course, the debates about remembrance, glorification, perpetuation of flawed historical interpretations and all that is associated with the tired “either / or” view of history, is not my thesis today, nor thankfully, of those educators involved.
The reality of some current global conflicts in the twenty-first century and their roots in the events studied by these students has been [at least partly] brought in to stark relief by the events of last week in Paris.
The students have researched families and individual soldiers who died in the first war. They have reviewed the “history” books and had planned to make small commemorations on behalf of local families and organisations with relatives interred in France and Belgium.
In particular, the students had been honoured with an invitation to make a presentation at the Menin Gate. Every single night since its opening in 1927, at 8.00pm, the road is closed in central Ypres, while ‘The Last Post’, the traditional bugle call marking the end of the day for soldiers in action, is played. A hand-made wreath, consisting of numerous hand-made fabric poppies [which have been part of Broadford Secondary College’s contribution to the 5000 Poppie project.] was to be the centre-piece of this commemoration. A magnificent hand-made quilt, provided by over 30+ community members was also going to be the centre-piece of a presentation to French students.
These opportunities no longer exist, yet the negativity, anger and disappointment for those involved is still real. Search for blame is always present in life’s disappointments. It was U.S. President Kennedy that said:
Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
These are the challenges that make us realise the importance of sound, rational and secular education.
The role of the teacher/educator is never more important than when the young ask “why”.
Now, more than ever, Education.
The lesson, experience and context for these students has been drastically changed by the events of the last week. Whilst the focus of global news services is on the “response” from Governments and the actors on the geo-political stage, I turn my attention to educators across the world and look to them for the responses that will signal the future. The real strategic commitment of resources within a civil society is yet to begin…
As a student myself [many years ago], I am reminded of the genuine impact the poetry of Wilfred Owen had on me, challenging those without experience of the things they call for in others… It is as timely today, this very day, as it was on the gas-covered battlefields of the old world.
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
Links
- Paris – France24
- BSC Battlefields Tour
- Now more than ever – Andreas Schleicher, Director, OECD Directorate for Education & Skills
- The Menin Gate
- The poetry of Wilfred Owen
- Global Classroom
