We are fast approaching the 70th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy to push back the forces of Nazism during the Second World War. Yet Canadian schoolchildren too often get their knowledge of the war from American films, as history courses are not obligatory in many provinces. A few dedicated school teachers
are doing their best to change that by making history vibrant and showing that Canadians played a vital and critical role in the war.
Neil Orford teaches history at Centre Dufferin High School in Shelburne Ontario, I reached him in Dieppe, France where he is on a battlefield tour with 16 and 17-year old high-school students.
It’s an unusual fact that many Canadians know little or nothing about this country’s amazing history.
All other exciting history aside, often even less is known about Canada’s military history.
Perhaps marginally they know about the Canadian efforts in Afghanistan but the vast majority know little or nothing about Canada’s presence in the Boer War, our contributions in peacekeeping and sometimes peace-making operations around the world, Korea, and Canada’s
2014, at the WWI memorial Menin Gate: Shelburne Ontario student Adrianna Ricci with veteran Tony Balch, who served aboard HMS Warspite during the landings on D-Day (CLICK to enlarge)
Often what they know comes from American tv and films, which focus only on American efforts, and sometimes not very realistically or honestly.
This may be excusable with the argument they are not “documentaries”, but it becomes confusing when reality is mixed with Hollywood fantasy.
The classic film, “The Great Escape” is a good example, as actually no Americans were involved in the effort which was largely Canadian.
Ontario teacher Neil Orford notes that students on his European tours are often amazed that the Canadian “men” who stormed the beaches against the hail of bullets, mortars, artillery, and hidden mines, were often teenagers like themselves, or barely a few years older.
2014 Dieppe, student Bethany Horsely with veteran Tony Balch who provided first hand knowledge of D-Day events and emotions
Orford says he has often seen a transformation in the students when they get a first hand look at the obstacles and evident dangers, faced and overcome by those Canadians, often at dreadful cost in lives.
He also says they get a new and powerful appreciation of their own heritage and what it means to be Canadian.
He is also one among many educators who feel history should be given a greater priority in the Canadian education system.
Certainly students fortunate enough to go on these tours come back with a far greater appreciation of both the amazing bravery shown, and of the incredible human cost.
The teacher chaperones on the battlefield trip standing on the pebble beach at Dieppe. Carrying heavy loads, and wearing hob-nail boots the soldiers had to run over the slippery footing in the face of incredible fire against them. These particular extra hard rocks also jammed in the tank track and broke them, virtually eliminating tank support in the disastrous Dieppe raid of 1942 (CLICK to enlarge)
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