Seminar participants take memorial project to heart

This August a group of 30 teachers and administrators representing public, Catholic, and Jewish schools from across Southern Ontario attended our seminar at the Ontario Institute of Education of the University of Toronto. Participants tackled the latest scholarship on the Holocaust and new strategies for teaching this sensitive material in the classroom.

A take-home assignment to create a memorial based on a theme or moment from the seminar had amazing results. Overnight, the teachers created moving tributes using media including music, visual arts, poetry, and theatre. Their handiwork included this poem, written by Robert Mewhinney, Program Coordinator for Social and World Studies and the Humanities at the Toronto District School Board, during his participation in Facing History’s 2010 summer seminar.

Who will be the voice?

 
Who will be the voice?
He who teaches of a genocide
That a state continues to deny;
He who uses the art of words
To combat threats to make him comply?

Who will be the voice?
He who helps others see the faces
Of those who the state would dehumanize;
Showing the diversity of those
Who the state would depict as the OTHER?

Who will be the voice?
She who helps us focus on the perpetrators
So the grand scheme of evil is not clouded
By the unique stories of the targets
And those so vulnerable to have not a voice?

Who will be the voice
When her voice can no longer be heard?
When the survivor’s voice is silent for future generations,
Who will hear the voice, the children, and grandchildren
And a great grandchild named Emuna (faith)?

Who will be the voice?
We who have heard, learned, shared, laughed and cried.
We who vow to pass the voices on to our students.
We who have worked hard to face history
And in so doing, face ourselves.