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With this year marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, the focus of most Remembrance Day memorials will be on this. While the end of the Great War should be commemorated, at Nord Anglia we must also consider that for some of our students, the relevance of a (largely) European war is sometimes difficult to find. With this in mind, my colleagues at the British School of Kuala Lumpur have settled on the theme of ‘legacy’ – which ties in very neatly with both the anniversary of the end of World War One, and the personal histories and legacy of our diverse students and host countries.
As last year, resources will be available in the History Community on NAU, with a PowerPoint that can be used for a stand alone assembly, focused on the different cultures and experiences of our students, plus the resources that I am developing alongside my colleagues at BSKL for their Remembrance Assembly and ‘personalised poppy’ display. Discussions will centre on our role as History teachers – is it our responsibility to educate future generations about war to prevent future wars? Or should we simply be teaching to ensure that we do not forget? Please add your own questions in to the community – we are fortunate to be able to draw on the expertise of fellow practitioners around the world.
Remembrance materials are also available in the NAU library – Gray and Donnelly’s book ‘History repeats itself in the classroom, too!’ has sections on World War One, World War Two, the Cold War and decolonisation that are helpful when planning lessons or an assembly. In the research section there is an article by Westheimer that discusses the use of music in History teaching – a fantastic resource for Remembrance in particular, as music is almost always included in assemblies on this topic.
Remembrance Day is of vital importance to the vast majority of History teachers and should be commemorated – our only question is how best to do this to serve the needs of the students that we teach. Discuss this in department meetings, talk to other practitioners in the History community and use the resources that are available to us on NAU. As always, please share what you do in your school on the History community and on Twitter with the hashtag #teachhistoryNAU – the more of us contribute to Nord Anglia Remembers, the bigger an impact we can have.
Nord Anglia Remembers - 'Legacy'
Charlotte Giles
Head of History
Teaching Fellow, History
The British International School of Kuala Lumpur