Tour 2008 - Tour Reports
The ANZAC Student Tour 2008, Teacher's Perspective
Michael Caudle - Margaret River SHS
Over my teaching career I have found travel to be an invaluable educational tool... it provides a raft of learning experiences and opportunities for both teacher and student... it provides context... it evokes passion and understanding... it enables empathy and emotion and it allows participants to apply their experiences with confidence. The 2008 ANZAC Student Tour did all of this and more.
Recently over a ten day period that straddled ANZAC Day just past, I was fortunate enough to have been selected, along with Rosinda Seara - S&E HOD at Hamilton SHS, to be one of the supervising teachers on the 2008 ANZAC Student Tour to France and Belgium, accompanying the twelve Year 9 to 12 students, including 10 from DET schools, selected by a rigorous process from across the state. The tour organisation and implementation was a military operation in itself and incredibly well organised and capably led by Robyn Cleaver and tour deputy Phil White - both with the Department. The historical focus was on the liberation by the AIF (Australians Imperial Force), exactly 90 years ago - on the 24th and 25th April 1918, of a small, but extremely strategically located, northern French village of Villers-Bretennoux. Many on both sides of the conflict saw this as a battle that not only saved France, but also was the beginning of the end for Germany's hope for victory.
As a Society and Environment and upper school TEE History teacher the itinerary had obvious connections to my daily teaching and student learning as we visited various memorials, museums, battlefields and cultural sites. As an Australian who had a grandfather in a Western Australian battalion who served, and fortunately survived, the horrors of trench warfare from 1916-1918 in these very fields and meadows - the connection was more personal. Like many of the other staff and students on the tour I wore the medals of past relatives who have served Australia over the many conflicts with pride whilst attending the various ceremonies during and after ANZAC day.
The tour purposely highlighted the reality that although Gallipoli and the original ANZACs, 8,000 of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice in this 9 month campaign, deserved a prominent part in our nation's heritage, Australia and Australian's commitment and sacrifice on the Western Front was of a much greater scale and saw a much greater sacrifice and therefore deserves the nation's acknowledgement, attention and gratitude. This also appeared to be the theme that was being promoted in the commemorative speeches during and after ANZAC Day by both the Federal Government, via the Minister for Veterans Affairs Alan Griffin and by our state via our own Premier, Alan Carpenter, who, like Geoff Gallop before him, is the patron for this annual student tour and accompanied the group over several days, sharing meals memorial visits, ceremonies, bus trips and the heartache of loses by the Dockers and Eagles with our small group. The fact that this was the first official dawn service at Villers-Bretennoux and the wide media coverage both in France and back in Australia also complemented this reappraisal of the western fronts' significance to Australian history.
The tour also reinforced the fact that Australia's western front commitment lasted from 1916 to near the end of 1918, involved 100,000s of Australians and resulted in over 53,000 deaths and a further 150,000 diggers being wounded, many like my grandfather, more than once. At the imposing Villers-Bretennoux Australian National War Memorial, located walking distance from the town, the walls alone list in what seem to be endless columns, the names of nearly 11,000 Australians who have no known grave, while another 780 Australian grave sites are located in the nearby cemetery. It is also a sobering fact that at the first major engagement on the Western Front by the Australians at Frommelles in 1916 more Australians were killed in this battle, that lasted a mere 27 hours, than our combined casualties in the Boer, Korean and Vietnam wars.
As we toured around the region we were all moved by the tranquillity of the scenes of perfectly manicured and maintained cemeteries and memorials. The beautiful and sunny spring days complimented the patchwork landscape of lush green and yellow French and Belgium fields, dotted with quaint villages and towns whose streets and town squares were lined with tulips of all colours and shades in full bloom. But the presentations at the various sites by both the students and tour staff reminded us all of the fact that 90 years ago these same fields and communities were once seas of mud and scenes of unimaginable death, destruction and sacrifice.
To counter this morbid realisation was something that I must admit I didn't think would affect me so greatly. Despite having read and heard accounts over the years of the allegiance to Australia in a number of communities in Belgium and northern France it doesn't really hit you until you see the green and gold flags and balloons adorning the streets and market squares, the huge images of a 'digger' painted on the side of a towns water tower, the numerous Australian street and place names, listening to French children singing Waltzing Matilda, hearing Advance Australia Fair on the bagpipes played by a French woman, with full kilt, at an Australian memorial, visiting small museums started by local volunteers or watching children play in a school yard under a huge green and gold sign in English "Don't Forget Australia".
Certainly the tour set a harrowing pace with literally only several hours of down time for both students and staff available over the whole time we were away. All students were required to prepare for and make presentations and be involved in official commemorative duties and media commitments (from Perth airport to our return we had a GWN reporter and cameraman as part of the group - sending vision and stories back each night as well as live radio broadcasts back to Perth in the wee hours of the morning). Students also at the end of each day were required to write a daily journal that was checked by their duty teacher... one of these was then typed up and placed on the tour website so those back in Western Australia could follow the tour. Perhaps the best example of the rigour of the tour can be seen in the fact that on the return leg flight from Paris to Dubai students were still required to fulfil their duties by hand writing draft thankyou letters, which would be eventually tabled in parliament and published in Hansard. Draft or drafts were then check and marked by us, the supervising teachers, before completing a final copy for submission before the plane landed at Dubai. For anyone who has travelled in economy class you can imagine that it was a scene to behold... 12 students and four teachers in cramped and darkened conditions on a long haul flight, working on those small fold-down tables, overhead lights, with blankets, pillows shoes etc. strewn all around... while the rest of the plane slept or used their back of the seat entertainment systems. The site certainly caught the attention, sympathy and admiration of both the cabin staff and the other passengers... but the final product of our combined efforts was truly outstanding.
I even suggested to the other teachers that we have created a chalkies "Mile High Marking Club"... literally a "School of the Air" if you wish... 'certainly we had taken monitoring and assessment to a higher level/plain'... perhaps I should stop now.
The highlights..? Well the services at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium (amazingly 90 years on, still held every night at 8 p.m.), the ANZAC Day Dawn Service at the Villers-Bretennoux memorial and the various French official and community ceremonies in the town of Villers-Bretennoux itself would have to be the pick... and each equals that of a ANZAC Day dawn service I attended at Gallipoli six years ago.
To be able to share all of this, with peers and students, was an experience of a lifetime and I encourage teachers to take note of the 2009 ANZAC Tour material that was delivered to schools in week one of this term. The pack has material to assist both schools - who wish to enter their students, as well as for teachers who are considering applying for one of the supervisory roles. I encourage teachers and schools to be involved in both aspects of the tour.
Finally I would like to thank all involved in organisation and conducting this tour and apart from anything else I have a much greater appreciation of my grandfather - what some call a "dinky di" a "true believer" that is those who joined up even when Gallipoli had shown to all the horrors of modern warfare and the war would not be over by Christmas. He was an 18 year old farm hand from Beverley - who after surviving the war was forced to walked off his farm during the Great Depression and ended his working life down the gold mines in Kalgoorlie. As a child I remember him as a huge rugged man; quiet, distant, with simple needs and tastes. He worked hard and only seemed to feel at ease with his small select group of mates. He never spoke of his experiences during the war nor ever commemorated ANZAC Day. But I now know that he saw and experienced things that my worst nightmares could not do justice to. The tour gave me a chance to thank him for his and his mates' sacrifice so that my generation and your generation can live in a nation such as Australia today.
- 2008 Tour Topics
- Historical Significance
- Participants (Student)
- Participants (Staff)
- Tour Diary
- Media Statements
- 2008 Tour Extras
- Official Photograph
- Tour Reports