Today, Tour for Humanity spent a very meaningful day at a Catholic Elementary School in Bracebridge. There were 6 workshops on the bus, during which Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Daniella saw the school's Grades 3-8 classes. The Grades 3-6 students participated in Simon's Story and the Grades 7-8 classes took part in the Canadian Experience program. 

Feedback from both teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive.The first class of the day was a Grade 5 class where virtually every student had a connection to World War II - in many cases students had great-grandfathers who fought for Canada in the war. One young girl shared a story about her great-grandmother escaping a concentration camp (she, unfortunately, did not know additional details). Daniella spent some time with the class talking about their personal connections. This also allowed her to re-focus the class and explain that it was even more important that they learn from the past and help protect the Canadian values that their relatives fought for.

The intermediate Canadian Experience workshops were also quite effective, with student participation being quite high and the Grade 7 class engaging in a discussion about the damaging effects of bullying. It was evident that some students had previously dealt with bullying, as they seemed especially taken by the material. Daniella worked with the class to come up with reasons why discussing bullying was so important for them but also the greater implications of someone being targeted for who they are. The last 2 classes of the day where a Grade 3/4 split and Grade 5/6 split, both of which had an incredible combination of knowledge and unfiltered questioning. In order to gauge their prior knowledge Daniella put up an image of Hitler and asked the classes what they knew about him. One student immediately said, "He is a very bad man that did some very bad things" - which Daniella, of course, agreed with. One student in the Grade 4/5 class said at the end of the workshop that she now really understood the importance of standing up for other people because, "if someone had stood up for Simon [Wiesenthal] maybe he wouldn't have been sent to the camp." Daniella really appreciated the empathy that this student demonstrated through her comment.