Technolandy

Day 47 (of 2024/25) Remembrance Day & Indigenous Veterans Day Assembly

Nice when the days align – Indigenous Veterans Day is November 8th – Remembrance Day is November 11th – but the BC School Act insists on an assembly for Remembrance Day the school day before the 11th – because of it landing on a Monday, the two days link up as one… otherwise we awkwardly try to promote a bonus assembly for Indigenous Veterans Day and more often than not, end up ‘blending’ it into the Remembrance Day Assembly. 

Inappropriately I am offering families and programs to encourage indigenous families to look at the 8th as most of the rest of us observe the 11th – as a day of observance and away from school.

It helps that we are an online school without mandatory attendance days (though this is an in-person day so we anticipate students being in attendance) and many will join our assembly – that we offer ‘live’ in our Oceanview campus with an online feed to our other campuses and home based learners.

But there are ponders about how the day ought to evolve… https://apple.news/Ar5levS_5Q5mKCYueenstLg

Including more local context statements: We thank Indigenous peoples (Tla’amin here in qathet) for caretaking and defending this land since time immemorial.

What happens in Landy’s School Assembly? This year we focused on how fortunate it was that Remembrance Day for schools (assembly the school day prior to Nov 11) fell on Indigenous Veterans Day! So, after acknowledging our local nation, I pointed out what to expect (we are on online school so many of our students are not familiar with traditional school assemblies)

What to Expect:

Anthems (as required by BC School Act)

Opening Remarks (talking)

Indigenous Veterans 

Music (coronet) and Moment of Silence broken by coronet

Act of Remembrance (talking & moment of silence)

Musical Performance (video)

Commitment to Remember (talking)

Official Dismissal (with bagpipe music)

Bonus Music – Bryan Adams “Remembrance Day”

Coast Salish & National Anthems.

Some Opening Remarks of how Remembrance Day Started

Shared a concern about the tradition: Copied and pasted from a friend. :

Nov 11 is coming soon: “Today I saw a man selling poppies stop a lady and asked if he could re position her poppy. While doing so he told that lady she should wear the poppy on their left side; the red represents the blood of all those who gave their lives, the black represents the mourning of those who didn’t have their loved ones return home, and the optional green leaf represents the grass and crops growing and future prosperity after the war destroyed so much. If the poppy has a leaf, it should be positioned at 11 o’clock to represent the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the time that World War One formally ended. He was worried that younger generations wouldn’t understand this and his generation wouldn’t be around for much longer to teach them. 🌺 we must remember those from our current wars too!”

Lest we forget.

We talked about Indigenous Veterans: Randi Gage, a Vietnam era veteran, played a role in establishing Indigenous Veterans Day in 1992

Why a day different than November 11th? – to symbolize the unequal treatment of Indigenous soldiers and veterans – different treatment = different day, but close enough to influence assemblies and gatherings that take place on the assembly that is always to take place on the school day preceding November 11th. Today our school recognizes both on the same day.

While exact statistics continue to be difficult to determine, the rate of Indigenous participation in Canada’s military efforts over the years has always been impressive. These determined volunteers were often forced to overcome many challenges to serve in uniform, from learning a new language and adapting to cultural differences, to having to travel great distances from their remote communities (often risking being arrested for being away from where they were supposed to live) just to enlist. The challenges they faced often extended to their post-service life. Many Indigenous war Veterans would not receive equal treatment compared to other Canadian Veterans.

We went over how the formal part of a Remembrance Assembly goes: How to properly use musical pieces (admitting this schedule has changed over the years depending on where I have hosted an assembly…)

We use Last Post and Reveille (aka Rouse) at Remembrance Day ceremonies. It draws the symbolic association between the soldier’s last duty of sitting sentry (death) and his rising above his mortal duties (reveille). This is when we ask our assembled people to stand if they are able, as a traditional symbol of respect.

The last note of Last Post marks the beginning of the 2 minutes (moment technically 90 seconds) of silence.

During the silence, we do not speak nor play any musical instrument, including bagpipes. This would detract from quiet reflection on the service and sacrifice of the dead. Following the 2-minute period of silence, the Rouse is played. Then lay any official wreaths. During the laying of wreaths, the parade shall be in the stand at ease position.

The History and Heritage Committee met on February 14, 2011, including senior members of each environment. The Committee accepted a proposal for a bagpipe lament during the Remembrance ceremony. You may now play the lament, as long as it respects the 2 minutes of silence. The lament shall be Flowers of the Forest. However, for ceremonies of remembrance at unit level, a suitable Lament shall be played. When we hear the bagpipes, it symbolizes the end of our assembly and that you can return to the rest of your plans for the day

We talked about the Act of Remembrance on November 11th (and how not every province gives a full day off in order to focus on our veterans)

We listened to a musical piece – this year Terry Kelly’s A Pittance of Time

Then a bit of tears from me with the reminder about the importance of 11… and then the bagpipes dismissed us with The Lament.

Brian Adams Remembrance Day was on in case people were still in the Commons area

Find some time on Monday… and remember.