Memory and Remembrance
Greenshaw students reflect on Armistice Day.
Assemblies this week focused on the theme of memory and remembrance. We discussed the power of memory, both individual and collective, to shape our identity, our sense of who and what we are but also our future, our sense of who and what we might become. We thus saw how hugely important and powerful memory can be, for both the individual person and the collective country. As a country when we remember events like the Gunpowder Plot, the 1966 World Cup or the Blitz, we do not simply remember the events of the past but we also learn from them, they shape what we think about our country and what it stands for. This is perhaps most powerfully reflected in our annual remembrance of the end of WWI.
Our memory of WWI and similar conflicts has shaped our identity as a country, it has informed the decisions of our people and our leaders ever since, it changed the world. If we hope to make sense of that world and to be successful in navigating our way through it, then we must take time to remember and learn from this terrible war. It is also hugely important to remember WWI because of the 17 million people who lost their lives in that terrible conflict. These people, many of them not much older than the students at Greenshaw, lost their lives, lost their past, their present and their future. In remembering them, not only can we say thank you to those who died to keep our country free but also we can be grateful that we are not being asked to make the same sacrifice they did and that thus, we can enjoy the privilege of our past, our present and the opportunities of our future. We should and we will remember them.
The assemblies finished with a minute's silence.
Miss Weatherhead, Assistant Headteacher