Inviting Perspectives: Bush Seventh Grade Class Visits Holocaust Center for Humanity

 

Seventh Grade English Faculty Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum organized the field trip for the second year for students. 

“The field trip is vivid and enriches the curriculum,” Kirsten said. “Each year they give us two docents, one whose job is to connect to contemporary life, get students talking about bystanding versus upstanding, and help contextualize anti-Semitic and biased acts in our own culture and moment. The second docent speaks to history. When we go through the history, they walk us through the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in the late 20s and early 30s and then through the era of the Holocaust to post-liberation. They talk about the Jewish families who immigrated to the United States and settled here and how they brought these artifacts to Seattle. It is very rooted in specific stories rather than a general history.”

During this unit, Kirsten created connections as Bush families brought in artifacts to go along with the curriculum and the class listened to a DVD recording from a Library of Congress testimony from a student's great-grandfather who survived the Holocaust. 

“Families are excited to contribute to the curriculum and even if it is not their family it helps students feel that this is meaningful and real and not that far in the past,” Kirsten said. 

Assistant Head of School for Academics Sarah Smith facilitated a discussion with students after their field trip earlier this week.

“I was inspired and in awe of the insights that our Seventh Grade students took from their trip to the Holocaust Center for Humanity,” Sarah said. “They clearly grasped the level of loss and trauma which the Holocaust wrought and identified inspiring stories of upstanders and resisters who attempted to stop the genocide. They saw the importance of bravery and courage when faced with unimaginable cruelty and the “othering” of entire populations,  and explored within themselves what ways they can apply those lessons today. Each student identified moments when they have been both bystanders and upstanders, and made commitments to themselves and one another about the importance of embracing the upstander role. One especially perceptive student shared that she learned from the experience, “When people in power tell you what they plan to do, don’t underestimate that they mean it and can do it.” This was a powerful and important experience for our students to have as part of our efforts to commemorate and honor Holocaust Remembrance Day.” 

In Kirsten’s Middle School English classes, the idea of connecting literature with real-life events, experiences, and moments in history are essential to explore beyond and question. This experience connected to the Seventh Grade curriculum as students have been studying The Book Thief by Markus Zusak about Liesel Meminger, a young girl living in Nazi Germany at the start of World War II who seeks refuge in stories and words. The book is narrated by Death, a constant presence throughout the story and Liesel’s life. 

This is scaffolded to the Upstander Project in English and History in Eighth Grade, an interdisciplinary student-led project focused on personal causes that students can take action on.

“In Seventh Grade, we’ve been talking about upstanders versus bystanders in history and in Eighth Grade students address questions: What can you individually do? What do you care about? What actions can you take? In Sixth Grade English and History the seeds are planted as well,” Kirsten said. “It is a concerted effort across the Middle School.”

Kirsten explained that in Seventh Grade History Faculty Jack Monagle’s classes, he teaches historical conflicts between nations, world religious histories, and how nations and religions have historically been in conflict or harmony. 

“The students bring to our conversations about Holocaust literature things that they learn about historical conflicts between nations in Jack’s class,” she said. 

This year they are reading God: A Human History by Reza Aslan and discussing world religious history and what those faiths mean. 

“The hope that we have across social sciences and humanities in Middle School is that we are giving them the breadth with these moments of deep diving into specific points in history so that it becomes personal and has a human face and then when they get to high school and look outward to the current day and how historical lessons apply to the challenges of our time,” Kirsten said.