From the Head of School

Armistice Day

The strangest images from World War One were filmed just as war was declared: cheering crowds in London, Paris and Berlin.  War was welcomed, especially by those about to fight in it.

In those first days, Rupert Brooke, who was 27 at the time, wrote:
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.”
Death may come, but it would be glorious and for a higher purpose.

Three years into the war, Wilfred Owen, another soldier in his twenties, had a very different vision of war.  He challenged his audience to praise war,
“If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face”

Neither of these solider-poets lived to 30.

Today is Armistice Day.  On Tuesday, ISA held its Armistice concert, proudly hosting veterans for the last post and the raising of their flags.  

As a school we recognise the courage of those who responded to the call of their communities by risking their lives.  In 1914, there may have been loud cheers, but each subsequent war has been met with resignation and dread.  Those who put themselves in danger no longer have illusions.

But just because ISA pays respect to soldiers does not mean that we think war is a ‘good thing’. As an IB school, ISA aims “to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”

 This value is not just about curriculum content - teaching children about lots of different places, it is mainly about the time and effort we put into developing social skills: in not seeing social issues as a distraction from the main business of learning, but as an opportunity for children to develop their skills and values.

The causes of war are complex.  But on this day, as we remember a war that finished just over a hundred years ago, it is worth taking the time to reflect on the values that allowed Europeans to hurtle toward death and destruction with such enthusiasm, and the values we would like our children to enter adult life with.  We righly view the cheering of war as very strange indeed.   

 

 

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