Today the Tour for Humanity was at a Catholic elementary school in Etobicoke. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Elena taught 6 workshops on the Canadian Experience to students from Grades 5 to 8. The organizing teacher is a tremendous Tour for Humanity supporter and she was very thankful and excited about the work FSWC does. She was talking about making our program a part of their school’s social justice strategy in the coming years. 

For the Grade 5s, Elena focused solely on the narrative of Simon Wiesenthal’s life as a way to introduce the subject of the Holocaust without overwhelming them. As usual this generated lots of questions about the personal details of Simon’s life, but there were also some very thoughtful questions about the treatment of Jewish people in European history. One student asked why human beings hate each other for things like religion or skin colour.  One student in Grade 5 really impressed Elena when he knew the word antisemitism and gave a good definition to his classmates, explaining that it’s like racism directed against Jewish people. He also added the fact that this has been a trend for hundreds of years. One student could not wrap their heads around the fact that Jews were seen by the Nazis as a different race so Elena tried to help him understand the fact that today we view most Europeans as “white” but in reality, the definition of who is white has shifted many times in the past. Elena told them that there have been times when the Irish, Italian, and Russian people were viewed as inferior by some other European groups and even described as a separate race. There were definitely some kids whose minds were blown by that. 

Many of the teachers were very thankful to see how Elena discussed Canadian history, particularly the residential school system. Most students had talked about the residential school system before so the activity where Elena asks students to compare the before and after shots of Thomas Moore Keesick was really powerful. Sonya shared a personal anecdote with Elena, explaining that she is of Metis ancestry and although she appears “white”, her son has a darker complexion and long hair. Apparently her son went to the USA recently and when he walked into a bar in Texas, he was told to leave because “we don’t serve dirty Mexicans here.” She said that her son was so shocked that he just walked out without responding. Elena agreed that it’s quite sad that people lead with that kind of ignorance rather than courtesy and respect. 

The students were very excited to be on the bus - our location in the middle of the paved playground area made Tour for Humanity all the more alluring and mysterious.