A DAY TO OPEN MINDS
After 9/11, Patrick Mascoe began hearing stories that concerned him. Some teachers at Ridgemont High School, next door to Charles H. Hulse Public School where Mascoe teaches Grade 6, began to see a hardening of attitudes among some Muslim students following the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
“After 9/11, they were saying they couldn’t teach Holocaust education in Grade 10 because the kids were walking out of the classroom saying the Holocaust never happened and the Jews are our enemies. There was a lot of turmoil.”
The Grade 6 teacher decided to do something about it.
Working with teachers from the Ottawa Jewish Community School (formerly Hillel Academy), he connected Grade 6 students at his predominately Muslim school with students from the Jewish school. They exchanged letters and students were amazed to learn how much they had in common. The lessons culminated in a Day of Cultural Understanding during which students met and played games and then listened to Holocaust survivor David Shentow tell his painful story.
That was 11 years ago. On Tuesday, Mascoe smiled as students played games and got to know one another during the 11th annual Day of Cultural Understanding, a now beloved tradition that has been recognized by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal, among others, and had a lasting impact on many. It is, Mascoe says, “a very different side” of the school that has been in the news after pesticides forced students and staff to relocate for weeks earlier this year. And the issues that sparked the program have disappeared, he says.
Students such as Haley Miller, from the Ottawa Jewish Community School, and Sumaya Al-Idrissi, from Charles H. Hulse, both 12, talked about how much they share.
“We have a lot more things in common than we do have differences,” said Miller. “I guess we learned that it doesn’t really matter what religion you are, we can all be friends.”
Charles H. Hulse graduate, Sophia Mirzayee, now 21 and a Carleton University student, took part nine years ago and has returned nearly every year since.
On Tuesday, she told students that the program changed her life.
Mirzayee, whose family is from Afghanistan, had never met a Jewish person and knew little about the Holocaust before she took part in the program, she said. She and her pen pal are still in touch. And Mirzayee, whose grandfather was a champion of human rights in Afghanistan, is studying human rights at university.
She talked about hearing David Shentow’s speech about the Holocaust — in which he told students he was the only member of his family to survive.
“It really sparked something in me. I was crying. I was a total wreck. I felt despair.”
She also felt compelled to take what she had heard and do something with it.
“Although I don’t remember most of the math equations I worked on (in Grade 6), I do remember the profound lessons I learned from that day. I can say I wouldn’t be the person I am today without that. It is the foundation of my outlook on life.”
Shentow, who has attended the event most years, was unable to this year because he was ill. The students watched his story on video.
Mirzayee said Shentow tells students that they have the power to change the course of history. “He always tries to empower children and young people to build on their character and to be kind to one another and understand each other on a deep level. I was really moved by that, and that is why I always come back.”
Moscoe encouraged students from both schools to become leaders by asking themselves, when they walk into a room, whether “it is a better place.”
Students like Mirzayee and others, he said, have taken that message to heart. “These kids are amazing.”