Aberfoyle Students Visit With A Veteran

By Margaret Hauwert

The grade 6 curriculum states that children will be given:

1. An opportunity to analyse responses of Canadian government organizations and/or individual citizens to a political or international event
2. Exposure to some of the major ways in which the Canadian government interacts with other nations of the world
3. An awareness of Canada peace keeping missions that stabilize regions in the world

Every student is challenged to develop an understanding of past societies, developments and events that enable him/her to expand his/her own understanding of historical and current issues.

The document also states that citizenship education is an important aspect of the curriculum for all grades. The reason being that students need to be given opportunities to learn and put into practice what a responsible, active citizen in a global community would look and sound like.

So that being said on Monday, November 5, Lieutenant Mark Couch (RTD) from thememoryproject.com (a branch of Histori.ca which does all the Heritage Minutes Commercials) delivered a presentation on Canadian soldiers to the intermediates.

In his hour long slide show, he shared with the students about the cost of life, how savage PTSD can be and the waste of war. He had the opportunity to work with many soldiers in his 10 year tenure but three people stood out to him for a variety of reasons.

Lieut. William Turner (deceased 2006)

• -he worked with village elders on a Afghanistan peace keeping mission
• -his talent was a great sense of team working ability
• -killed by a road side bomb

Captain Nichola Goddard (deceased 2006)

• -she was a good captain who was loved by all in her unit
• -first female to die in combat in Afghanistan

Romeo Dallaire

• -he was the Force Commander who led an ill fated United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda (1993-94)
• -many people died tragically
• -suffered from PTSD
• -became a senator

Listening to Lieut. Couch talk about how these brave soldiers gave up their lives for others was disheartening. He stated we should be proud to have the most educated military in the world because the best weapon anyone can have is his/her brain!

He left us with one parting phrase: If you would like to pay back a veteran for helping our country be free “be the best citizen you can”

So once again I wonder to myself, How much information did the gr. 6, 7 and 8’s get from the presentation?

1. Was it just right, too much, not enough?
2. Was the topic absorbed and if so how much?
3. How did he/she analyse the information?

So once again I randomly selected students from the three grades.

What did you think the presentation was about?

• Gr. 8 Parker – He showed us what you have to do to become a soldier and details about weapons.
• Gr. 8 Nya – I really liked learning about the past! I love history!
• Gr. 7 Abby – I enjoyed learning about the training you need to go through. I didn’t know that they wore white over their outfits when they practised in the winter.
• Gr. 6 Kate – I was really interested in all the pictures. He talked about where the soldiers were and what happened on some of the missions.

Once again I will let you be the judge