Our annual trip to Washington D.C. has lived as a piece of the 7th grade experience since it first began in 1993. Mr. Dave Hawley has faithfully led this trip every year since its inception, including 2020, when our students arrived home 24 hours before everything shut down. Mr. Hawley has long been creating an unforgettable experience for both the students who have chosen to go, but also the parents who have decided to accompany them.
Each spring, as they walk through the capitol, following in the footsteps of the founding leaders of our country, our students are given the opportunity to reflect on and be inspired by their vision of the founding principles of our nation. During their trip, students toured the Capitol Building, Arlington National Cemetery, the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Air and Space Museum, the National Cathedral, Ford's Theater, the Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Natural History Museum, the National Archives, and Mt. Vernon. In addition they visited Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Marine Memorial, Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean Memorial, FDR Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial.
Despite the extensive list of places to be and things to see each year, Mr. Hawley has made sure to take a few moments each day to intentionally soak in what students experience. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is when they pause to read out loud Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. There is no better place to hear these words and watch as the gravity of it settles into their memory bank.
Intentional reflection is something that is prioritized throughout the trip. The students spend their evenings journaling and recapping their experiences from the day. When we asked a group of students who had recently returned from D.C. about their thoughts, Houston Esterline shared, “I liked this trip a lot because I got to spend time with friends and also learn a lot about our history. I think my favorite part was the Holocaust Museum because it was a very good insight into what it was like to be Jewish in the 1940s. It was sad, but the museum was really good and there were a lot of artifacts from the concentration camps.”
Whether reading the original Bill of Rights or inspirational quotes from our country's leaders engraved in their memorials, our students walked away with a deeper appreciation of the original words written in our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."