Classroom on wheels delivering Holocaust history to Waterloo Region students

Grade 6 and 7 students in Waterloo Region are learning about a dark part of history in a unique setting.

The Tour for Humanity, a mobile education centre from Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, is teaching students about the Holocaust and the lessons learned from that time.

“This kind of discussion about how we treat each other, and especially how we treat each other well, and the certain biases and opinions we have about each other, it’s always a discussion that we’re going to have,” Marie Louise Puevas, an educator with Tour for Humanity, said.

“We are all coming from different lived experiences and culture and religions, so we do see patterns happening throughout history. What are the lessons we can take from it and make sure that we are making the world a better place.”

Students at St. Nicholas Catholic Elementary School were involved on Tuesday.

“It makes me feel really sad about all the lives that had been lost,” Grade 6 student Daniel Tetui said. “It’s kind of interesting how people just don’t like people just because of their religion.”

Another student said it has inspired him to always treat people with kindness.

“It’s a sad truth, you know? It’s something sad but something that we should always remember so that we don’t make the same mistakes in the future,” Grade 7 student Jadon Singarajah said.

The sessions are held on a 30-seat accessible bus with theatre-style seating and large screens, offering students a unique environment to learn about compassion, respect and empathy.

Those themes are also tied to some current affairs.

“We’ve made connections to the war in Ukraine, to what’s happening in Gaza right now, and then also within Canada and the United States with the Black Lives Matter movement,” the students’ teacher Jessica Picassinos said.

The 30-seat accessible bus has theatre-style seating and large screens, offering students a unique environment to learn about compassion, respect and empathy. (Stefanie Davis/CTV Kitchener)

Despite their young age, educators say it’s important for students to learn factual information about history and about what’s happening in the world right now. The war in Gaza acts as an example.

“A lot of my students didn’t know what was going on, for example in Gaza right now, so for me personally I try to make it a mission of mine to explicitly teach these things and make these connections so that students are aware of what’s going on beyond Kitchener-Waterloo,” Picassinos said.

The bus travels across the country but will remain in Waterloo Region for the rest of the week.