Tour for Humanity spent its third day at a middle school in Brampton today, presenting the Canadian Experience workshop to eager Grade 7 and 8 students. One Grade 8 class in particular stood out because their teacher had done a tremendous amount of work in advance to prepare the class. 

After watching the Holocaust video, one student wanted to know about Hitler’s suicide because he had read “that Hitler actually survived.” This was a great lead in to discussing real versus fake information. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Daniella asked the class to raise their hands if they had ever heard stories of Hitler surviving the war, and close to half the class said they had. Daniella used this opportunity to explain how false information can easily travel and where these ideas come from. She told the class the truth about Hitler’s suicide, and tasked them with always thinking critically when they come across questionable material in the future.  

When Daniella transitioned to present day hate crime statistics, the class was very interested to know more about the current climate as well as what actions were considered “hate crimes” – especially online. Daniella talked about targeting a person versus targeting them because of their race, religion or gender and how unfortunately it was quite difficult to have a crime labeled specifically as a hate crime. Daniella also looked at the percentage of crimes labeled specifically as hate crimes compared to the population of Canada as a whole.  

The class left the bus armed with tools to raise awareness in their community and be able to combat intolerance and hatred when it arises at school.