Month: November 2019

Thanksgiving and the Anti-War Movement

November has been Peace month in the School Library, with an emphasis on understanding peace education, the anti-war movements, civil disobedience and other non-violent means of social change. Such themes overlap with American Thanksgiving in “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Originally released in 1967, Arlo Guthrie’s 18 minute long recording of “Alice’s Restaurant” is a protest song against the Vietnam War.  The events described in the song, beginning with a Thanksgiving celebration amongst friends during the sixties, were the inspiration for a film which was released in 1969.

More than 50 years later Guthrie’s signature song is a staple of classic rock radio stations on and around American Thanksgiving.

Find out more:

Holocaust Survivor visits our School Library

symbol Jews were required to wear, identifying them for persecution and murder
source: wikimedia commons

We are very honoured to welcome Mr. Janos Benisz to the Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School Library today for a presentation to English and Social Studies classes. Mr. Benisz is a survivor of the Holocaust, the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and five million non-Jewish civilians by the Nazi regime and its collaborators in the years before and during the Second World War.

The visit of Mr. Benisz is made possible through a program of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. To find out more, please visit vhec.org

Remembrance Day

source: wikimedia commons / Creative Commons

At Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary today we have our annual assemblies to observe Remembrance Day. We honour the memory of those Canadians who have fallen in war.  We do not celebrate or glorify war, but we pay respect to those that have paid the terrible costs of war.

This coming weekend will be a long weekend for students, a chance for rest and recreation. However, it is important to remember that Remembrance Day is not one of the those holidays that is just an excuse for a long weekend. Please take some time over these next few days to reflect on what Remembrance Day is all about. And on the 11th, plan to take some time to honour those that have died and those that have served. Whether you attend a ceremony in person, or check out the television coverage of the ceremony in Ottawa, take some time for Remembrance.