Hope not hate

"When will there be another World War, Mr Townend?" a child asked me yesterday. His question was clearly spurred on from a week of Remembrance activities where there has been much talk of WW1 and WW2. Added to that, we joined in the national minute's silence to remember the victims of the Tunisian beach massacre earlier in the year, and more recently, bowed our heads in silence during assembly to think of the victims of the plane crash in Egypt.

With that in mind, his question was very reasonable. Another child had asked "When will the Germans attack us again?" To an adult, such a question sounds ridiculous, but to a child, it is a perfectly logical thing to enquire about. In their understanding of movies and game sequels, we've had World War 1 and World War 2, so surely the third instalment can't be too far round the corner.

We spent some time watching the Sainsbury's advert from last Christmas - the Christmas Truce, where the British and German soldiers met in No Man's Land on Christmas Day to play football and exchange gifts. I pointed out that the German soldiers were the same as the British - innocent, young boys who didn't have a clue what they were letting themselves in for when they followed the orders of their superiors. I also told them that the story proves that even in the depths of despair, darkness and depravity, hope and love can shine through.

"There will not be another World War." I reassured him. "We live in a very different world now. In this country, we are safe."

This morning I switched on the news to see that 130 people had been killed by terrorists in France -  a country just thirty or forty miles of water away from my own, A country with highly advanced intelligence and security systems, like my own. A  country with similar values to my own. What's more, there wasn't just one attack - there were several co-ordinated acts of terror, and not one of them was thwarted.

"We are safe." I had said. Do I believe that today?

Children in primary schools have a lot of questions to ask. Many parents try to shelter them from the brutalities of the world, with good reason, but there is no escape from the truth in the classroom or in the playground. 

As a teacher, I have always seen my role to educate, not in a purely academic sense, but in a more 'holistic' way (to coin an over-used word in education circles.) That means talking openly about the problems and issues in the world to create a greater understanding and tolerance of all people, colour and creed - a message of hope, not hate.

My own class is 100% white British, which has its challenges. The world's issues may seem quite distant to some children. Others may be heavily influenced by unhelpful opionions of parents. 

I sometimes wonder how different my approach would be if I taught in an inner-city school in Birmingham or Bradford. Those teachers are on the front-line between hope and hate. There are forces at work that are trying to brainwash innocent children into being martyrs for a hopeless cause that incites violence and hatred. Those very same forces are responsible for the massacre in Tunisia, the carnage in Paris, and probably the plane crash in Egypt.

My message as a teacher, to educate those children, would be this:

Your faith is a force for peace in this world. Your religion and its teachings inspire so many people to share love and hope with a world that needs it. Whatever direction your life takes, make sure you choose to love, not hate. We all depend on it.

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#23 We live in a broken world

This week, it's been announced that there will be a national minute's silence for the victims of the dreadful terrorist attacks in Tunisia.

At midday on Friday, people will pay their respects and reflect on how fragile and unstable our world has become.

When I was at primary school in the late 1980s, I can remember isolated news stories, such as the Lockerbie bombing, the Piper Alpha disaster and Hillsborough. At the time, these were huge tragedies that devastated communities. I remember discussions about these on the playground, but can't ever remember discussing them in class.

At secondary school, I was even less aware of the major news items of the day. My only memory is overhearing a conversation of two older boys in the cloakroom about the death of the former Labour leader, John Smith.

Back then, the world was a very different place. Of course, it changed forever on  September 11th 2001. Now, not a day goes by without another news stories about western values being threatened by extremist ideologies.

In my Year 6 class, we talk about these issues. Often, the children will catch up with the day's events by watching Newsround, and we discuss the stories together. These help the children to understand religious and cultural differences, as well as enabling them to form opinions on the world around them. We talk about them, because it affects them. Many of them will be taking foreign holidays this year. It pains me to say it, but what happened in Tunisia could easily happen again. Yet we also talk about them to remind them that Islam is a peaceful religion, and that they have nothing to fear from their Muslim neighbours.

Needless to say, children are confused by this - that's the 10 and 11 year-olds in my class. I'm not sure what our school is doing to mark the silence, but I know that my class will treat it with great respect. As for those in other year groups...

I think of my own daughter in Year 1. Would I want her to take part in a minute's silence about a man with a gun murdering lots of people on their holidays? No.
We turn the radio off when she is in earshot of troubling news stories. Perhaps we are sheltering her. But at six years old, I don't think she's ready to know just how broken our world is.

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