In advance of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, we reached out to Teresa Friar, a History and English teacher from Canada who is bringing her lesson plan to life by taking her students on an Explorica commemorative D-Day tour to Normandy and Paris. In planning this special trip, Teresa worked to customize their experience by adding on a visit to Pompeii and Rome.
How do you and/or your school usually commemorate D Day?
Our school doesn’t [typically] do anything special for D-Day. If I am teaching history, I usually have students working on a D-Day beach diorama.
Why is it important to you that your students learn about D Day and the 75th anniversary of the event first-hand?
There is nothing like being on site to appreciate what it must have been like for the soldiers landing on those beaches. Being part of a major event like the 75th anniversary, being there with students from across Canada and around the world, is something that cannot be replicated in a classroom, and [my students] will never forget it. Visiting the cemeteries always has a lot of impact on students. You can try to prepare [the students] for what it will be like, but I think many of them are surprised at how emotional an experience it is. Of course, [it is] always wonderful to see the interaction between veterans and students, and for students to witness how grateful people in the liberated countries remain.
“Being part of a major event like the 75th anniversary, being there with students from across Canada and around the world, is something that cannot be replicated in a classroom, and [my students] will never forget it.”
What are you hoping your students will take away from this experience?
I hope they take away something more than the glory of war. All of the tanks, and airplanes, and batteries that they will see are incredibly interesting to many of them. But I think when you actually visit the site of battles, the sacrifice of the ordinary soldier becomes paramount.
What do you think will be the most memorable part of your tour?
Of course the 75th anniversary will be the highlight. What I love about these trips, though, is the variety of activities that you can work in, all of them valuable. We are visiting Pompeii on this trip, for example.
Where are you most excited to visit as part of this trip? What about your students?
The students are excited about all of it, from Paris, to Normandy, to Rome and Pompeii! The breadth of cultural and historical experience will be amazing. I want to see first hand what is happening with Notre Dame; like thousands of other people, I was very upset to see it burning.
“You can try to prepare [the students] for what it will be like,
but I think many of them are surprised at how emotional an experience it is.”
Have you been preparing your students to ensure they get the most out of this once-in-a-lifetime trip? If so, how?
One of the things students have been doing is researching soldiers from our city who are buried in Bény-sur-Mer war cemetery. We will visit those specific graves, and students will tell a little bit about those soldier’s lives, and how they died. I think this will personalize the experience. Sometimes it can be too easy to slide over the numbers of soldiers who were killed and wounded, without thinking of them as individuals, with families.
Is this your first historical education tour based around an anniversary? If not, which have you been on previously, and why did you choose to do another?
I have done many tours: all of the major anniversaries at Vimy Ridge, the 65th and 70th anniversaries of the Liberation of Holland [on VE Day], and a couple of previous anniversaries of D-Day. They have all been awesome experiences… They [really are] once in a lifetime events.