March 29, 2001
by Teddy Kider

The eighth grade will take an optional four day trip to Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate the end of middle school in a fun atmosphere, as well as to wrap up and connect all of the main topics discussed in the eighth grade classes. From May 16 to May 20, the eighth graders will visit the Atlanta History Museum and the Jewish History Museum of Atlanta along with other sites.

These places will offer an exciting end-of-the-year trip that will be an interactive way to learn about many of the themes that are carried out through middle school, according to School Life Coordinator Navah Kelman.

“One purpose of the trip to Georgia is just to celebrate the end of middle school,” said Kelman. “Another purpose is to pull together pieces of things that the kids have been learning in seventh and eighth grades, things like community and responsibility— particularly civil rights and other Jewish communities outside of our own.”

A firsthand experience like this trip is very important to the education of the students and to their understanding of material that they have learned in the past and that they will be learning in the future, according to Director of the Middle School Joan Vander Walde.

“At this point in their lives, kids need field trips to relate to what they are going to study or to serve as a bridge to what they will study,” she said.

“In the eighth grade history curriculum, they are dealing with global issues. Part of what they are dealing with is human rights and the media. Atlanta is a great place to go for that,” said Vander Walde.

The idea of the trip was modeled off of that of the Atlanta Epstein School, whose students come to Washington, D.C. every year for the same purposes and typically spend a portion of their time with JDS, according to Kelman.

In addition to the many sights of downtown Atlanta, including those about civil rights, a different Jewish community and Southern American life, the eighth grade will be staying at a local camp for a Shabbat experience, designed to replace the eighth grade Shabbaton held in previous years and intended to enrich the students’ lives by building on eighth grade Rabbinics courses concerning Shabbat, according to Rabbinics teacher Rabbi Janet Ozur Bass.

“We are going to be spending Shabbat at Camp Ramah Darom, which is a new Jewish camp outside of Atlanta,” said Ozur Bass. “It’s a beautiful camp, and eighth grade Rabbinics culminates with learning about Shabbat.”

But despite all the opportunities the trip offers, some parents are concerned that, due to the length of the drive from Rockville to Atlanta, the eighth graders will be spending two nights sleeping on a coach bus, according to Kelman.

But, although only 110 kids out of the 127 eighth graders are going on the field trip, there have only been two parents that have specifically expressed concerns to Vander Walde.

Kelman believes that the concern expressed over students sleeping on the bus is just natural for something that is being proposed for the first time in the school.

“Other schools do this all the time,” said Kelman. “It’s the first time that we’re doing this. So, the first time that you do anything, people are always going to have some questions, and eyebrows are going to be raised.”

According to Kelman, the night in an Atlanta hotel and at Camp Ramah Darom will help to make up for the lack of sleep on the bus for two nights.

“You don’t get the best night’s sleep on a bus, that’s a given,” said Kelman. “But they do have one full night’s sleep at a hotel and one full night’s sleep at Ramah Darom.”

Additionally, Kelman said that the amount of sleep that students will get on the Atlanta trip will not differ from what they would otherwise get.

“Having already been on quite a few Shabbatonim, I can tell you right now that the kids don’t get any sleep, no matter what we do,” Kelman said. “I believe that they won’t be getting any less sleep on a bus,” she said.

“It’s true that no one will be getting any sleep and it will be very loud, but it will be fun,” said eighth grader Eitan Bornstein.

Ozur Bass pointed out an additional benefit to the trip—that it is a good way for the kids to finish middle school and move on to the next step in their lives.

“We were looking for a trip that would become a culminating experience for the middle school. We were also looking for a place that would tie in nicely with what they have studied,” said Ozur Bass. “In addition, it would be a good way to hand the kids off to high school, where they are going to begin American history in ninth grade,” she said.