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Eighth-grade Students Welcome Return of Washington D.C. Trip
When they came upon a speaker blaring on the White House sidewalk, several students started dancing. Soon enough, a group of their teachers had joined them — history within view but pavement beneath their feet.
“People were just relaxed and having fun,” eighth grader Smera Thekkenmar said of the moment. “The students were relaxed. The teachers were relaxed.”
There was plenty of learning and plenty of enjoyment experienced by Somers eighth graders last week when they visited Washington D.C. The eighth grade trip to the nation’s capital, which had been a tradition since 1973, returned after a three-year hiatus.
“Everyone had been talking about it all year,” Cassidy Dontje said. “It definitely lived up to it.”
The three-day, two-night trip, which brought students to more than a dozen historical sites, is what teachers and co-organizers Mary Ellen Klock and Alison Pepe referred to as “a rite of passage for eighth graders.” But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 trip was canceled. Trips in 2021 and 2022 were never fully formed due to ongoing virus spikes and tourism restrictions.
With a safer environment this year, the trip returned. There were 155 students and 21 chaperones who drove down in four buses. Eighth-grade student Millie McCormack pointed to all the singing on Bus 2 as one of the highlights. She said it brought her closer to her classmates and to her teachers, who the students saw in a different light.
“I was not expecting it to go how it went,” McCormack said. “It was such an exciting experience.”
Hudson Ruby and Connor Sheldon pointed to their visit to Arlington National Cemetery as a highlight.
“You were able to get a sense of how many people have died for our nation,” Sheldon said. “It was very moving.”
While on the cemetery grounds, the students observed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“It was such a silent environment,” Ruby said. “It was amazing how the guards were so precise in their movements. You can see how that took a lot of practice.”
The students also visited the Capitol, all of the monuments to past presidents and historical figures, several war memorials, three Smithsonian Institute museums and the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“We saw a lot of things we’ve been learning about in history,” Charles Armstrong said. “We were able to see the fruits of our labor and how what we have learned connects to real life.”
To some students, the trip offered an opportunity to forge new memories and build bonds with classmates.
“I loved being able to room with some of my friends,” Charlotte Senitta said. “Some of them I only see at school and we have the stress of getting our work done and meeting deadlines. It was nice to relax, hang out and get to know some of my classmates even better than before.”