Alerting Sensibilities

"Although I don't remember most of the math equations I worked on (in Grade 6), I do remember the profound lessons I learned from that day. I can say I wouldn't be the person I am today without that. It is the foundation of my outlook on life."
"He [former teacher Patrick Mascoe] always tries to empower children and young people to build on their character and to be kind to one another and understand each other on a deep level. I was really moved by that, and that is why I always come back."
Sophia Mirzayee, 21, student, Carleton University, Ottawa

Sophie Mirzayee, now 21 and attending Carleton University, says her view of the world changed after listening to a Holocaust survivor.    Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen

"After 9/11, they were saying they couldn't teach Holocaust education in Grade 10 because the kids were walking out of the classroom saying the Holocaust never happened and the Jews are our enemies. There was a lot of turmoil."
Patrick Mascoe, Grade 6 teacher, Charles H. Hulse Public School, Ottawa

"We have a lot more things in common than we do have differences."
"I guess we learned that it doesn't really matter what religion you are, we can all be friends."
Haley Miller, 12, student, Ottawa Jewish Community School

Sometimes one person's vision put into action, making the right contacts and the remedial moves that situations require, does make a huge difference in society. Patrick Mascoe's perplexed reaction to what he saw around him with a bitter hardening of attitudes from young Muslim students who attend the Charles H. Hulse elementary school in Ottawa led him to consider what he might do as one person to effect a change in attitude. What he witnessed happening at his school meant to him that lack of experience led to ignorance.

Patrick Mascoe, a Grade 6 teacher at Charles H. Hulse, started the program 11 years ago because of increasing intolerance among young people in the years following 9/11.   Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen

He felt that the person-to-person interpersonal introduction of students from one parochial Jewish school to students of another public school with a majority Muslim presence could and should teach the children at both schools that there is indeed more that unites them as young people living in Canada, despite their religious conflicts than what it is that sets them apart. Bigotry and a lack of openness is what set them apart; hearing conversations between adults whose attitudes had already hardened is what set them apart.

Patrick Mascoe decided he would contact some of the teachers from the Ottawa Jewish Community School and persuade them to help him connect Grade 6 students at his predominately Muslim school with their peers at the Jewish school. The contact began with a degree of separation, in that letters were initially exchanged, with the children at each of the schools writing about themselves. This gave them the first inkling that they were quite alike, after all.

Out of that initial contact grew a Day of Cultural Understanding, eleven years ago. Students met and they played games together. And then they listened to David Shentow, an elderly Jewish man, speak about his background as a Holocaust survivor. Since then, the surface issues that led to the initiation of the program have dissipated; students from each of the schools no longer viewed one another with suspicion, casting aspersions one on the other, as cultural-religious enemies.

Sumaya Al-Idrissi, left, Haley Miller, right. Julie Oliver/Ottawa Citizen

Haley Miller who attends classes at the Ottawa Jewish Community School, discovered the pleasure of a close friendship with Sumaya Al-Idrissi, from the Charles H. Hulse public school. The twelve-year-olds speak about their shared interests. Their discovery that knowing someone personally and finding them open to sharing themselves in friendship represented a far better emotional and maturing experience than simply accepting an atmosphere of animosity toward those whom one has no knowledge of, relying on a hateful narrative on which to base hostility.

When Sophia Mirzayee, as a student at the public school first was exposed to the Annual Day of Cultural Understanding, she listened to David Shentow speak of his painful background. "It really sparked something in me. I was crying. I was a total wreck. I felt despair", she explained much later, at the 11th annual such event, events she takes care to return to, though she is now older and a university student. She feels compelled to commit herself to the cause of mutual acceptance and understanding.

Her family origins are as Afghans. She had never met a Jewish person, her knowledge of the Holocaust was utterly lacking before she became part of the program. She remains in touch with her original pen pal from the program. Her own grandfather had been involved in human rights campaigns in Afghanistan. And she now studies human rights at university. Now, speaking at the latest Annual Day of Cultural Understanding, Sophia Mirzayee tells the younger students how Mr. Shentov, now too ill to appear in public, told students they have the power to change the course of history.

His charge to the students when Ms. Mirzayee first heard him speak remains one of the motivating inspirations for her chosen course in life. She speaks with gratitude of her old teacher, Patrick Mascoe, encouraging his students and those from the parochial school to become leaders; to indulge in the introspection of prodding themselves as to whether their presence in any situation helps to ensure "it is a better place".

Jewish, Christian and Muslim boys Noah Thompson, Jared Scheinberg, Keith Sarazin, Boris Livshits, Hussam Alhoumud and Noor Maher horse around before a basketball match.  Julie Oliver / Ottawa Citizen