Human rights museum opens 4 years early ... at Seven Oaks school

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights may still be years away from opening its doors, but that didn’t stop the students of a local school from turning their classrooms and hallways into a museum of their own.

What began with Grade 8 teacher Gerry Bohemier teaching his class at Ecole Seven Oaks Middle School about the Holocaust has gradually grown into a major, museum-like program. This year’s museum took on a science fair atmosphere on Feb. 26, as 250 students from 12 classes showing off projects on issues as diverse as Canada’s internment camps, the genocide in Darfur and international rights for children.

The museum was open to the rest of the student body as well as visitors from nearby schools during the afternoon, and the school reopened in the evening for parents and friends to visit.

Teachers selected a general human-rights-related subject for each class, and students had about a month to delve into a more specific topic and create their projects.

“The kids have gone far beyond just using the Internet and reference books to find their information,” said Bohemier.

Some students managed to track down Holocaust survivors as far away as Indiana to hear their stories.

“Doing the project and finding the information…when they talk to someone it impresses upon them that it’s their responsibility to pass the story along,” Bohemier said.

Grade 8 students Jacey Boyd and Brett Brooks chose to do their project on Dr. Eva Olsson, a Holocaust survivor now living in Ontario who spoke in Winnipeg recently.

“So much of the stuff she said was touching, and her story really interested me,” Brooks said.

Olsson and her sister were the only members of her family to survive the Nazis after enduring more than a year of forced labour in several camps, including Auschwitz.

Boyd and Brooks did a 45-minute interview with Olsson, which left them with a new perspective on human cruelty.

“We’re all human, and no one deserves to be treated like that,” Boyd said.

Mavis Beilman, Caitlynn Danchuk and Melissa North looked at the story of Rosa Parks — the African-American activist who refused to sit at the back of a bus in 1955 — and asked how much racism still exists.

“It’s still something that occurs today,” Danchuk said.

The students built a replica of the bus made famous by Parks, and conducted a poll of 147 students to see how much prejudice exists.

By asking questions about people’s attitudes toward race, the Grade 8 students found that 45 of the respondents did have some racial prejudices.

Grade 6 students Everett Eadie and Lucien Kenny looked into the state of human rights in Afghanistan and Mozambique.

“There is so much poverty that not all kids get to go to school,” said Kenny, adding that HIV/AIDS is creating a crisis in Mozambique.

The goal of the museum is to open the students’ eyes to all the people who are worse off than Canadians, Bohemier said.

“We hope they become more aware of society and the injustices that are happening around the world.”