During the summer break, Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) middle and high school students who were selected as award recipients for the Paper Clips project had the opportunity to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
The Paper Clips project, which took place last fall and was led by the DCPS Council on Educational Equity and Inclusion, invited students to watch the Paper Clips documentary - which details how middle-schoolers from rural Tennessee collected more than 20 million paper clips to honor the victims of the Holocaust.
Students then had the opportunity to react to the film by submitting written and visual pieces. From the work submitted, several students were chosen to visit the museum.
During the trip, students explored the devastating and long-term consequences of hatred and intolerance, and then considered how they can help construct a future of cooperation, inclusion and high achievement.
While visiting the museum’s Hall of Remembrance, where memorials written on limestone walls encircle an eternal flame, Kirby-Smith student Natassia McGhee was reminded of the hatred the Nazis had for those not like them.
“Why did they think it was okay to do this?” she asked herself.
That is the question many Duval County students asked after watching Paper Clips and participating in the project.
“The goal is to encourage students to take personal responsibility for the future they wish to create,” Josephine Jackson, the executive director of the district’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. “We want them to be culturally competent and prepared for a future in the global marketplace, as well as to develop an understanding of the connection between ones actions and what occurs in our communities and the world.”
The trip to the museum helped integrate classroom discussions with the reality of the lives of real people who are memorialized in the museum. It also demonstrated first hand the senseless violence and death caused by ignorance and hatred.
“Few words can capture the effect of seeing so many lost lives and the collapse of civilization. The stark contrast between the atrocities committed during the Holocaust and the opportunity we shared as a diverse group of people traveling, eating and learning together gave students and adults reason to pause,” Jackson said. “This trip is an experience they will carry with them for a long time.”
Student Natassia McGhee agreed.
“Visiting the Holocaust Museum was a life-changing experience,” she said. “It made me appreciate the freedom I have to be around people of every color and race.”
The following students, whose pieces were selected from the more than 80 submitted, received the trip to the museum: Tiffany Hollis from J.E.B. Stuart Middle School, Kayla Jolley from Sandalwood High School, Cheyenne Light-Smith from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Miranda Harrison from Baldwin High School, and Elita Cook, Natassia McGhee and William Pendergraft from Kirby-Smith Middle School.
The trip was funded by CSX, WW Gay Mechanical Contractor, Inc., Wage Peace of Northeast Florida and an anonymous donor.
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