English teacher, Mrs. Thompson, has made many changes to make her class that are both fun and educational for her students. She has begun evolving her teaching her style along with the current trends in education. Thompson’s most recent project was taking her class on a field trip to The Museum of Tolerance.

“I have been on this field trip before, years ago when we had the grant and all the sophomores were going,” Thompson said. “I have now taught [the Book Thief] a couple of times and I wanted to have some sort of real experience to show the relevance of the themes of the book. I remember being very moved by the museum and I wanted to offer that again. So I contacted the museum and they gave me some information. The district was very kind and supportive and encouraged me to do so and help any way they could.”

By going to the museum, students were given chance to experience the horrors of the Holocaust and how this event came to be. This museum put the students in the position of someone who lived during the Holocaust so that they could understand what really happened. 

“You take the spiral staircase like you are going into the spiral of history and the fact that it does repeat itself,” Thompson said. “ You get to re-live the history and see first hand and walk through Berlin, Germany. You get to see the systematic steps that lead to the Holocaust including the people who say ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s not going to happen’ and then you get to take on the experience of someone who was in the concentration camps. Then you walk through the gas chambers. As an audience member of the museum, you think it’s so long ago and then rightfully, the museum shows us all the current examples of the same thing happening. It ends with this video that really drives that point home that it’s happening now and they have exhibits of personal responsibility too, which I thought was an interesting theme.”

This experience further humanized the event and accompanied the topics that are discussed in Thompson’s class. The museum provided more background to the novel the students are reading in class, The Book Thief, and the other activities in Thompson’s class.

“Empathy is one of my big words and finding relevance in what you are learning and applying it to your life,” Thompson said. “For English, it’s always you read this book, you think about the texts and find the relevance of it and find how it applies to your life. You come up with a theme, like how do you want to live your life and is this what you want it to be like? It’s perfect for history, photography, art, psychology, english and unfortunately science that we saw too and math with all the numbers. It is absolutely a great place for everybody to go.”

Sophomore, Erin Smith brings her back her experience from the museum and explains how it influenced her.

“It made me think about my family, especially my brother because he is young,” Smith said. “I want the best for him and to think what would happen to my family and to me. I know my classmates feel the same way. We just thought about our life and how we can change things and make them better so events like the Holocaust don’t happen.”

Because of the outcome and influence The Museum of Tolerance had on the students, Thompson plans to make this an annual trip, not just for her class, but all sophomores.

“I’m trying to either write a grant or get support from our community to pay for the busing, because that is the expensive part and then pay for the////