On Friday September 24th the eighth grade took a trip to the capital of the United States, Washington DC. The trip took the eighth grade to many monuments, memorials and museums throughout the city. The afternoon of the first day included a visit to the National History Museum, meant to celebrate American Culture and the Aerospace Museum, detailing the World’s Exploration of Space. That night we visited the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War Memorials. The standout of these three was the Vietnam Memorial, a wall with plaques commemorating the fallen soldiers. There was no grandeur, no statues just a wall of names. This reflects the horrific losses of human life in war in contrast to the other memorials celebrating the magnificent soldier who pulled through and won the day, because not all war stories end like that. Many start with a man walking into the field of battle and falling to the ground an hour later.
The following day we visited the JFK, MLK, and FDR memorials. The JFK memorial was at the Arlington National Cemetery. It was a staircase leading up to a flat area with a flame burning in the middle. This is an eternal flame, a flame meant to burn for an indefinite period of time to commemorate something for eternity, in this case the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We then visited the Martin Luther King memorial, a beautiful area with a curved wall of quotes by Dr. King. In the center stood a statue of Martin Luther King carved partially into stone with the quote on its side, “out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” The last one of the memorials that we visited was the FDR memorial. It consisted of four sections each one representing one of his four terms. A common theme in this memorial was waterfalls to represent the state of the economy during Roosevelt’s presidency and how he managed to help it recover.
After the memorials we went to the Newseum, where we had lunch. We then explored the museum which talked about the importance of the media and showed the evolution of news in society. One room was filled with old newspapers from as far back as before the 1700s.
The final visit was to the Holocaust museum. Students and teachers alike had strong reactions to the imagery shown in the museum. Many were moved by the intimate stories of the people who were persecuted, and the heinous deeds that were committed by the Nazis. Our newspaper advisor Coach B was moved by the room of shoes, a room with hundreds of shoes taken from the people at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Shoes of the old, shoes of the young, shoes of boys and girls, shoes of those rich and of those poor all gathered to tell a story of their deaths. The museum had an effect on everyone, turning even the most unruly students into caring and respectful ones. When we eventually got out everyone seemed sad and reflective, all with the events that happened in those horrible years on their minds. As we boarded the bus people started returning to their carefree selves, yet we all had the museum on our minds. We left DC enlightened to that chapter of history, and over the next week during meeting for worship and class we reflected on what we felt. From what was said it seems that the eighth grade will carry the message taught by the museum for a long time to come.