A couple of months ago one of my students won an essay contest put on by one of my favorite organizations,
The Bill of Rights Institute dedicated to educating young people about the Constitution. This corresponds well enough with 11th grade curriculum that my school assigns the essay to the entire Junior class. Then the English teachers and US History teacher fight for the top fifteen essays to submit. I must have chosen well because one of the five students I submitted placed third in our region.
To me, that in itself is impressive and worth the difficulty of assigning a scholarship essay as an assignment, but the organization goes above and beyond to honor all the folks who help mold the 27 winning students. They payed for my student, her mom, and myself to travel to D.C. for three days. During the program I stayed in the Marriott (below) which was convenient to everything, including my dear friend whom I met for coffee one afternoon.
I watched my friendly, but typically shy, student grow in amazing ways in a short amount of time. She became close friends with intelligent, articulate, and motivated students across the country; dropped her phobia of cameras; and developed public speaking skills. By the end of the week she was thinking about moving to the energetic city. It renewed my passion to see more of my students partake in events like this.
In the mornings the teachers went one way, the students went another, and the parents headed out on their own. On the first day the teachers were ushered in to the vault with the founding documents. It was relatively quiet and I found myself liesurely absorbed in all the documents on display. This is when I realized that this trip would be different from all the others I've taken in D.C. The last time I walked into the vault, way back in the 6th grade, it was so busy that we were asked to walk through the chamber in a line without stopping.
 |
| The wreath of boxwood, which hedges all of G. Washington's gardens, that we laid in honor of that great man. |
So I was able to enjoy every activity without regret. Besides, I think the organization has great taste, it allowed me to revisit my favorite place, Mount Vernon. I don't think I could ever tire of these beautiful, peaceful grounds. Our guide was great and helped recreate George Washington vividly. We also laid a wreath in Washington's tomb, a ceremony I had never before heard of.
 |
| The original tomb of the Washington family. |
I also learned more about Washington's transformation and dilemma with slavery. This scene from one of the slave quarters made me grateful again for our modern conveniences. I like things to be clean, but I'm a rotten cleaner (which is pretty disheartening at times). I couldn't imagine having only cast iron pots, logs, and soft, dirty broom to work with.
Another treat came late one night when we all went for a guided night tour of the monuments. I had been to them already, but never before at night. Sadly my camera doesn't work well at night, but trust me it's a beautiful sight.
When we walked down by the Wall, I was taken aback. As the Wall loomed over my head in the dark, I had the sense of being buried. Even if you've visited this memorial in the day, it's worth another visit in the dark.
There a few days before the Cherry Festival, I saw some of the first white blooms appear. Very pretty.
A group shot before entering the Library of Congress, another favorite building of mine. Afterwards we took a tour of the Capitol Building, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Having heard that the Smithsonian of American History had been remodelled in the last three years, I turned my feet in its direction on my free day. Of course I was inspired by Julia Child's kitchen.
And had to take a picture of Kermit for Miah.
I was also surprised by the Greensboro lunch counter. They had clearly changed a number of displays around including the Star Spangled Banner. I think they did a beautiful job displaying the flag--incredible. While I enjoyed the museum until my feet hurt, I was a bit sad I couldn't fit the Museum of Natural History into my day. It's one place I've never made it too.
One of the big highlights of my trip was the ability to see my friends. Most everyone escaped my camera or the pictures didn't turn out well enough for public consumption.This is Theresa's gang, minus her son who is going through an anti-camera phase. What a beautiful family. I learned a lot about large families and was able to catch up with one of my favorite people. (Thank you kids for letting me hog your mom's time that day.) I also spent a lot of time with Madalyn and her mom. We shared a memorable night adventure of spilling out of the apartment building on account of the fire alarm. It brought back the old days of fire alarms going off at night in the dorms.
All in all, I was grateful for God's answer to my prayer to be able to visit my friends in D.C. Talk about answering in an ususual way; I didn't even know that sponsoring teachers of the essay contest won a trip.I can't wait for you, Miah, to be old enough to appreciate a trip to this beautiful city.
