Today, Tour for Humanity started off 2018 at a middle school in Brampton. This was Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center's (FSWC) first of five days at the school located in a new subdivision between Brampton and Mississauga. The school has 32 Grades 6-8 classes!

The day started off a little rocky due to inclement weather, but once everything was set up FSWC Educator Daniella was good to go. Today Daniella saw the beginning of the Grade 7s, all of whom participated in the Canadian Experience workshop. By the end of the day word had spread throughout the school and the last class of the day was full of questions. Daniella was surprised that none of today’s classes had done previous work on the Holocaust yet a lot of the students knew quite a bit of information. Questions ranged from Hitler’s early life to why he targeted the Jewish people to why Canada did not want to help the Jewish refugees aboard the S.S. St. Louis. Daniella found out later that the school is using the Tour for Humanity visit as a jumping off point to begin units on the Holocaust and encourage further discussion about tolerance, equity and inclusion. The school wanted to address bullying issues head-on as incidents had occurred in the past so they started off this school year with a big push towards inclusiveness and creating a more tolerant school environment. Daniella was impressed to see the school administrators welcoming students back to class by first name and everyone being very polite and helpful with one another.