Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) was invited to speak to Dr. Mara Reich's pre-service teacher course, Multilingualism and multiculturalism in educational contexts, at York University today.  Students in this course are looking ahead to a future in education – mostly classroom teaching.  Dr. Reich was at the point in her course where they’re investigating human rights education and what equity looks like in the classroom.  FSWC Director of Education Melissa shared a program that has been presented at education conferences and in teacher training sessions with educators from all levels of education called Equity Essentials.  It’s an approach that looks at creating a framework for equity education in the classroom that is accessible for all.  The program encourages teachers to frame all lessons using the knowledge, compassion and action. 

Similar to most groups at the beginning of the presentation, the students were unfamiliar with Simon Wiesenthal so Melissa started the presentation by discussing Mr. Wiesenthal and his story with a particular focus on his post-war drive for justice.  The students were all fully engaged in all of the content of the presentation.  They actively participated in an activity that had them reflecting on racism in Canada. They were also very receptive to the programs that FSWC offers.  Hopefully FSWC will have the opportunity to work with these educators a little further down the road in their career when they have their own classrooms!

Dr. Reich sent a lovely message this afternoon regarding the presentation.  She wrote, “It was an enlightening and very informative talk that will hopefully inspire the students to make a difference in the world through education, especially of the next generations.”

The Tour for Humanity was also on the road today at a Catholic elementary school in Brampton. During the day there were 6 workshops on the bus for students in Grades 3-8. The school was quite small so we were able to see every student from Grade 3 up.

As always, there were some very interesting moments, particularly from the Grade 8 class. The class wanted to know a lot about the Holocaust, particularly the treatment of Jewish people prior to entering into the camps. FSWC Educator Daniella discussed the Jewish ghettos and how violence was commonplace. One student asked if “someone said to throw a rock at a Jewish person then someone could just do it without consequences” was true. When Daniella replied to this student that in theory yes, violence in many places was tolerated and oftentimes encouraged, the class was horrified. They then asked more questions about Nazi ideology and propaganda.