News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Some 31 students from Sisters Middle School saw their history studies come alive during a field trip to the East Coast June 16-23.
The seventh and eighth grade students worked all year to raise funds for the trip, which took them to New York City, Philadelphia, the Amish country and Washington, D.C.
Justin Nicklous, a math teacher and Dean of Students at Sisters Middle School led the trip, along with teachers Paul Patton and Megan Schoenecker. Parents Tracy Anderson and Becky Henson acted as chaperones.
The students visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York, and paid a visit to the site of the World Trade Center, destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The group traveled to Philadelphia for a half-day visit to Independence Hall, where they saw the Liberty Bell and the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed.
"(The students) got to see the desks where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin sat," Nicklous said.
Nicklous said that students react differently to the sense of reaching across centuries to touch the past. For some, the impact of the weight of history is immediate; for others, it sinks in slowly.
"Some of them made that connection at the time; others don't," he said.
However, Nicklous said, in his experience, virtually all students develop a great appreciation for the experience over time.
The group moved on from Philly to Hershey, Pennsylvania, then spent a day in the Amish country around Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
For kids from a thoroughly "wired" culture to visit a culture that allows no electricity in the home - that means no Internet, no TV, no video games - was an eye-opener.
"They were pretty struck by that," Nicklous said.
He noted that not all the students were put off by the notion of turning off the power switch. One eighth grade girl commented, "I think it's cool. I'd like to live this way."
The students also made a connection with an Amish quilter, telling her all about the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in their home town.
The group made a three-hour bus ride to Washington, D.C., where they took in all the important sights, including a tour of the Capitol offered by staff from Sen. Gordon Smith's office. They visited the National Archives and saw the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and visited several museums.
The students had all studied the Holocaust in seventh grade and they saw their study brought home with vivid impact at the Holocaust Museum on The Mall.
Nicklous described the experience as "pretty intense for a lot of the kids. It's a pretty quiet and somber place. Being around kids, you sometimes worry whether they're going to respect that."
That was not a problem for the Sisters kids.
"I don't think there were many words spoken for two hours," he said.
The students were powerfully struck by the pile of thousands of shoes from the Nazi prison in Majdanek, Poland - which included the tiny shoes of little children.
One of the trip's most compelling moments came when Lauren Chauncy, Geneieve McKenzie, Brian Boswell and Trenton Kropf placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
The students were selected in an essay competition.
"They did a great job," Nicklous said. "That was a meaningful experience for them."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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