Students learn about human rights by creating own museum

By Mireille Theriault

Boiling down as complex a topic as human rights into a simple concept can be difficult. Gerald Bohemier hopes that if there is one message his students at Ecole Seven Oaks Middle School have grasped, it’s that human rights equal human respect.

They took the words and with them built their human rights museum.

 “One of the things that the school tries to teach kids is the true meaning of respect,” he says. “Respect for themselves, and each other. Respect for their country, their community and for all people living around the world.” 

Although Bohemier has used the diary of Ann Frank and the Jewish Holocaust  to inspire projects on human rights with students for over a dozen years, the idea of presenting a Human Rights Museum inspired other classrooms to do the same with impressive results.  Bohemier , as well as teachers Joni Jongerius, Dan Hall and Amber Anderson were the organizing force behind a project that ultimately involved 12 classrooms and 250 students from Grades 6 to 8.

Students researched topics dating from the Second World War to the present and included events from Europe, Asia and home to their own back yard. The museum was comprised of dozens of displays, some measuring 5’x 3’ on panels to display photos, maps, letters and research notes. Many exhibits were ingenious in the way they opened to reveal the information inside but what was most notable about so many was the lengths to which they went to gather information.

 “Two of the boys attended a lecture at the Pantages theatre by Dr. Eva Olson. They even bought her book and worked up the courage to phone her in Toronto for a personal interview.” Bohemier says.  They were not the only students to conduct phone interviews and seek out personal, one-on-one contact with people who had lived through war camps and military occupation. For some students that meant learning about their own family history.

As one of Bohemier’s students said, “I heard the stories about what happened to my grandparents, but it didn't really mean much to me when I was younger. They were with about 20,000 Polish people sent to work camps in Siberia.”

The student convinced her grandmother to speak to her classroom about the ordeal.

“When they were being sent to the camps in boxcars, one of her sisters left to find food.  The Russians told them that they would stop for an hour but left after only a few minutes.  My grandmother saw her sister running after the train, but it was too late and they never saw her again. My grandmother was the only one of her family to survive.”

Teacher Amber Anderson explained how her class came to study Burma's fight for freedom. “We have about 150 refugees at my local church from Burma. I’ve worked with them for over a year and when I talked to the kids about it, they became very interested.  We discussed what was going on now, not as a matter of history. I also wanted them to have first-hand information so we had people from the community come into the classroom and talk to the kids.”

Bohemier says students also discovered the importance of looking in their own back yards. One of the groups researched Aboriginal residential schools. Another class studied internment camps that affected Ukrainian and Japanese-Canadians. It was a bit of an eye-opener for them, but important in connecting the importance of human rights with something closer to home.

“So often, kids use words or put downs without thinking twice about where those words come from.”  

Without question, the most satisfying part of the museum project was opening the doors to the public. On February 26, 2008, classes from other schools visited the museum in the afternoon, then from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Ecole Seven Oaks Middle School opened its doors to the community at large.

“We had well into 500 or 600 people that night,” says Bohmier. “Students didn’t just stand next to their exhibits, they used it to introduce so much more of what they learned along the way.”

“I had grandparents moved to tears,” says Anderson.  “As one grandfather said, ‘when I was in school we learned the rules of mathematics and grammar.  I can’t believe my 11-year-old grandson is mature enough to have learned about this.’ They appreciated that this was meaningful learning.”