Conflict and Remembrance - Dominant and Alternative narratives
Our School Remembers Website aims to give some guidance to schools and colleges who wish to reconsider, develop and enhance (not replace) their existing arrangements for commemorating remembrance day to represent a more inclusive and critically-informed whole school remembrance. Teachers should be mindful of which conflict or conflicts they are asking their community to remember whether it be the First World War, Second World War, or colonial struggles for independence and that these often had a global reach and involved a diversity of peoples and theatres of conflict. As Leaders and Teachers we should be mindful that Remembrance can be deeply personal and take many different forms. We must encourage respect and understanding of this diversity of views without promoting versions of Remembrance that can be neglectful or hurtful of others, rather see it as an opportunity to educate.
In British schools there are often dominant narratives of the WW1 and the WW2 and colonial struggles for independence are often ignored. The WW1 dominant narrative is Tommy in the Trenches of Flanders. The dominant narrative of WW2 is often presented as western front focused but also civilians, consider Dunkirk, Blitz, Battle of Britain and D Day. There is little consideration of either British forces or subjects on both sides who were impacted upon by colonial struggles for independence. In contrast to this the academy acknowledges that colonial subjects of Britain were involved in all of these conflicts and that their contribution is rarely remembered as alternative narratives of Remembrance. It is suggested that both dominant narratives and alternative narratives are not mutually exclusive and can coexist in a more inclusive and critically-informed whole school remembrance. The links to the right and below are opportunities for us to consider our own thoughts about remembrance and how we might like to consider nurturing our students developing thinking about these complex narratives. |
Resources and links to Consider
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