{"id":32476,"date":"2019-05-03T03:43:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T10:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=32476"},"modified":"2019-05-01T14:53:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:53:54","slug":"traveling-beyond-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/05\/03\/traveling-beyond-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Traveling beyond classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Springfield Collegiate Institute students walking into Auschwitz. (photo by Jim Osler, SCI)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Holocaust education is commonplace in Jewish schools. But, in public schools, discussion about the Shoah is at each teacher\u2019s discretion. Some 14 months ago, teachers at Springfield Collegiate Institute public school in Oakbank, Man., decided they would take 30 Grade 11 and 12 students to see Second World War sites firsthand.<\/p>\n

Despite that Oakbank is home to few Jewish families, the school has been inviting Holocaust survivors to speak to students and has been educating its students about the Holocaust for years. Last year, teachers Jim Osler and James Chagnon made the decision to take things further.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this was not on a topic brought up in a regular class, we organized activities outside of class time for these students in the evenings and on the weekends to educate them a little more,\u201d said Chagnon of preparing the students for the 12-day trip, which started March 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe visited a synagogue and talked to a rabbi about what it means to be Jewish, because we don\u2019t have any experience with that,\u201d Chagnon told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cWe went and met two Holocaust survivors, who talked about their experiences in the camps. And we went to a conference on antisemitism hosted at the Rady JCC [in Winnipeg]. So, we did a lot of prep work outside of the school with these guys to make sure they\u2019d be ready for what they\u2019d be experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chagnon referred to a recent study that found that only about 30% of Canadian high school students had awareness or knowledge of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had always taught English here in the school in addition to history \u2013 novels like The Diary of Anne Frank<\/em> \u2013 and these seem to be getting pushed to the wayside,\u201d said Chagnon. \u201cThe younger generations these days, especially in a community like ours that doesn\u2019t have a big Jewish population … it\u2019s just something I don\u2019t think parents have a lot of experience with and, so, it\u2019s not passed onto the kids. So, if they don\u2019t learn about it in school or as part of our programs or clubs, they maybe aren\u2019t going to learn about it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school had wanted to take more than 30 students on the March trip, but had to stick to that maximum for logistical reasons. Participating students had to fundraise to pay their way.<\/p>\n

Madison Stojak, in Grade 12, and Anna Palidwor, in Grade 11, were both born and raised in rural Manitoba, and had little knowledge or interaction with Jews prior to attending Springfield Collegiate.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Springfield Collegiate Institute student Ana Palidwor, left, teacher James Chagnon, centre, and student Madison Stojak. (photo by Jim Osler, SCI)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHearing Holocaust survivors\u2019 stories and then going to the camps, like Auschwitz and Birkenau … you could remember what the survivors said and picture it, what they must have gone through while they were there,\u201d Palidwor told the Independent.<\/em> \u201cHow we felt while we were there has stuck with everybody after we came back. Also, we\u2019re more aware of the race issues that are out there… That\u2019s definitely stuck with me … realizing it\u2019s still here, wherever we go, the hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the school group was at the Warsaw Ghetto, a man on a motorbike drove by and gave the middle finger to a group of Israeli students who were standing beside them. \u201cAfter all that, you\u2019re just more aware of it, anywhere you go,\u201d said Palidwor.<\/p>\n

Both Stojak and Palidwor have talked about their experiences with family and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I shared it with my family members, it was kind of surreal to them,\u201d said Stojak. \u201cThey were like, \u2018How could other people treat people like this? How could this happen? How come no one stopped it?\u2019 They were questioning the same things I think all of us were questioning on the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the strong points we really tried to push on the students, in terms of their learning, to understand, is that this isn\u2019t the first time this has happened,\u201d Chagnon said. \u201cWe definitely want it to be the last time, so we can\u2019t just sit by and be passive bystanders anymore. When you see antisemitism, you are now obligated to call it out, draw attention to it, so we can change the way the world works.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the students returned from the trip, they were taken aback by some of the reaction they heard from fellow students who did not go.<\/p>\n

Stojak said, \u201cI hadn\u2019t heard any comments before the trip like these \u2013 until they realized we were there … people started making rude comments … hateful comments. I think they were saying it to get us upset, and I also think that they\u2019re really undereducated and don\u2019t understand how serious it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne comment someone said to me was, \u2018Don\u2019t touch me with your Holocaust hands!\u2019 That\u2019s what someone said to me. And, as soon as he said that, I said, \u2018What did you just say?\u2019 And he repeated it. I looked at him and said, \u2018You didn\u2019t just say that to me. That\u2019s ridiculous. Do you know how many millions of people died there? That\u2019s not something you should be saying.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI stood up immediately and shut it down,\u201d said Stojak. \u201cIt made me feel sick to my stomach. How could someone make a comment like this? When he said that, I pictured standing there at Auschwitz or Birkenau and thinking, how could someone be so ignorant to say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kinds of comments are making us want to be more active,\u201d said Palidwor, \u201cand to explain it to more people who weren\u2019t there and tell them what the Holocaust is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
The 30 Springfield Collegiate Institute students, three parent chaperones and two teachers in the old town square in Krakow, Poland. (photo from SCI Students)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the things that stuck in Chagnon\u2019s mind from the trip was the incident with the Israeli students. He noticed that there were a dozen security personnel with the Israeli student group but none with the Canadian school group.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my students said, \u2018Wow, I didn\u2019t understand how bad it was \u2013 that these kids on a school trip from Israel have to be accompanied by security guards,\u2019\u201d said Chagnon. \u201cThat kind of struck me and I made sure to point it out to my students. It gives you a bit of perspective for the Jewish community \u2013 how scared they must be all the time \u2013 that they can\u2019t send students to learn about the history of their people, their culture and religion, without having to send security with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another thing that stood out for Chagnon occurred when the group was visiting a Jewish cemetery and noticed that locals use the cemetery as a bathroom stop for their dogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a guest in their country, but I was shaking, I was so angry,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe people would show such indignity to a group of people who suffered so much already.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
The memorial at Mila 18 Ghetto Uprising site in Warsaw, Poland. (photo by Jim Osler, SCI)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe had a nightly debrief at the end of every evening,\u201d he continued, \u201cwhere we sat around and talked about the day, how we felt about it and our reactions to it, and that\u2019s one thing I brought up … that some of this stuff may seem to have gone away … maybe it isn\u2019t as bad as it was, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not there, just bubbling under the surface, waiting for an opportunity to pop up.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, that\u2019s the reason we did a trip like this, and I know Jim [Osler] feels the same way.\u2026 They say people who don\u2019t study history are doomed to repeat it and, for me, that\u2019s very true. You have to talk about these things, even the ugly things in history, so we don\u2019t let it happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Springfield Collegiate Institute students walking into Auschwitz. (photo by Jim Osler, SCI) Holocaust education is commonplace in Jewish schools. But, in public schools, discussion about the Shoah is at each teacher\u2019s discretion. Some 14 months ago, teachers at Springfield Collegiate Institute public school in Oakbank, Man., decided they would take 30 Grade 11 and 12 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8957,801,3076,53,8955,8954,8956,6797,8953],"class_list":["post-32476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-anna-palidwor","tag-antisemitism","tag-education","tag-holocaust","tag-james-chagnon","tag-jim-osler","tag-madison-stojak","tag-manitoba","tag-springfield-collegiate"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}