In Grade 5 Social Studies, students have been engaging with powerful stories to develop a deep and personal understanding of their unit on displacement, migration, and refugees. Through the novel Refugee by Alan Gratz, and in smaller reading groups exploring books like A Long Walk to Water, No Ballet Shoes in Syria, and The Bone Sparrow, students step into lives shaped by loss, resilience, and hope.

 

“By engaging with stories and perspectives that differ greatly from their own, students begin to imagine what life might be like for refugees, immigrants, emigrants, and migrants,” explains Grade 5 teacher Sanne. “Through these experiences, they develop a deeper understanding of the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that drive human movement, as well as the human rights challenges faced by the characters in the texts we study.”

 

Moments of reflection have been especially powerful. Sanne recalls a discussion on bias, where students began to challenge assumptions. “Many refugees once had careers, homes, and livelihoods,” she notes. “Hearing 11-year-olds recognize and articulate this was incredibly powerful and showed depth in their thinking.”

 

A particularly meaningful moment came when Mahmoud and Yusef visited the classroom to share their stories. Their presence brought attention to what Sanne describes as “the millions of voices whose volume knob is so low that we dismiss them in our everyday lives.” Hearing directly from two confident, successful individuals who had experienced displacement due to war helped students connect emotionally and intellectually to the topic. Their stories made migration more tangible, shifting it from an abstract idea to a lived human experience.

 

One student reflected, “I think their visit connects to human migration because they had to flee their home countries for safety. This is different from the person I'm interviewing because my person is an expat, which is someone who moves but doesn't intend to stay there.”

 

Empathy has continued to grow through student reflection and dialogue. One shared, “I had never met a refugee before. I felt sad to hear their story… we need to be empathetic towards them to make them feel at home.” Another added, “It must feel really bad to leave everything you have and know… it makes me feel bad that families get separated.” In response, students have also begun imagining ways to support newcomers, including ideas like “social anchors” such as sharing recipes, music, and traditions to help people feel at home.

 

In the Design Technology lab, students translated empathy into action. They created meaningful and useful objects that their characters from the books they read could use in their journeys, such as compasses, lamps, water filters, medicine. One student, inspired by A Long Walk to Water, created a photo of home for the character Salva, explaining it would “remind him of home… and give him hope along his journey.”

 

In this unit, Grade 5 students are learning not only about migration, but how to see the world through the eyes of others—building the understanding that, as human beings, regardless of where we come from or the journeys we take, we all deserve to be treated with empathy.