Today, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) was invited to present a workshop to anewly developed equity team of teachers in the Durham District School Board(DDSB).  The DDSB has had some incredibleteachers doing work in their own classrooms that reflect human rightseducation; they are now taking the next step to develop team leads fromdifferent schools that can then return to their home schools and lead equity ina much more organized and informed manner.

 FSWC Director of Education, Melissa Mikel, presented the Equity Head to Toe program for the teacherswhich looks at incorporating equity into curriculum in a student-led manner –using knowledge, compassion and action to shape each of the programs.  When working with teachers, presentingframeworks are quite effective.  Thisprogram teaches about current day hate trends (incorporating Stats Canada hatecrime results), calling hate – hate, and using contemporary news stories andsuggestions on how to break this conversation down. Stories of survivors andmeaningful ways of empowering youth are also included.  Melissa shared FSWC resources with theteachers as a means of support them in their equity journey. 

 The teachers were incredibly receptive to the program.  The hate crime report from Stats Canadaproved to be quite shocking to them as many were not aware of these currentstatistics – an audible gasp could be heard at numerous occasions as Melissaoutlined the numbers and the trends. They also were not aware of the availability of these statistics.  The DDSB member who organized thepresentation approached Melissa after the presentation to say how important itwas for her teachers to see this information. She said that she knows teachers will follow up and she looks forward toa growing relationship with FSWC.  Shewill definitely be promoting and recommending FSWC programming to allelementary and high school teachers in the DDSB.

The Tour for Humanity was also on the road today, spending a second day in Bracebridge at a Catholic high school. FSWC Educator Daniella presented 5 workshops on the bus, a combination of Grades 9-12 students, all of which participated in the Canadian Experience workshop. 

The feedback was very positive, one class was part of a specialist high skills major program in the non-profit field, so they were very interested in the organization. Daniella made sure to tell them more about FSWC at the end of the workshop.

There was also a smaller group of students identified with behavioural issues. They were very engaged, asking a lot of questions and wanting to know more about the Holocaust. Daniella spent a long time with them discussing Hitler's rise to power. When it came to the story of the SS St. Louis, the students were very surprised to hear that the Holocaust had an impact on Canada as well, especially with Canadian policies of turning away Jewish refugees.