Jane's Pocket Change: Why We Remember?

I like to begin each school year with a reflection about something that caught my eye during the summer.

This summer I was drawn in to a stunning piece of installation art at the Tower of London, "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper, 888,246 ceramic poppies will progressively fill the Tower's famous moat. (See picture).

It is a stunning piece of art that makes you consider many things. The role of the Tower not only as a prison but as a training ground for soldiers. The meaning of the poppy (it is the wildflower that grew readily in the war fields of Europe) and the significance of the number 888,246.

As the summer moved on, other things happened in the world: fighting in the Middle East, horrific stories of kidnapped journalists and the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. I kept returning to this image. And I began to consider: Why we remember?

With the help of some students, my colleague Johara Tucker created a display board in Kluchman with pictures from 1964 and 2014, showing the clear parallels between race riots and early civil rights demonstrations and the protests in Ferguson. Yes, we must remember.

So why remember The Great War, 1914-18?

--Men enlisted, or were called up, in their millions, being sent to fight in places that many had never heard of before. It was a global struggle. Life changed forever. Nothing was ever the same again.

--In the opening moves of the war, both in the West and the East, the nature of modern warfare soon became clear. Armies were numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Modern weapons rapidly caused heavy casualties and laid waste to whole communities. Soldiers went to ground, digging trenches and dugouts that soon began to feel almost permanent.

--The crucible of war also proved very creative. Aircraft developed quickly, taking death and destruction into the sky. New ways of fighting made better and more effective use of huge quantities of shells and bullets manufactured on a scale never seen before. (From the website First World War Centenary)

We forget easily; we forget because it “slips our mind,” or because we need to forget (the pain or terror of something in our past). So why remember? If we want to understand today, we need to know and remember what happened yesterday.

 

I hope we can cultivate our memories; share our stories and never assume that remembering something from the long distant past is not worth remembering.

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Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.