As eighth grade student Jake Forseter walked into the Supreme Court for the first time, he looked around and noticed several things he learned about in class such as the statue of John Marshall, former Jurist and United States Secretary of State, and portraits of former justices.
On April 9, the eighth grade went on their annual field trip to Capitol Hill. Each eighth grade student takes a government class, where they learn about the three branches of the U.S. government. Eighth grade students are learning about the Judicial branch in government class, so this trip helped them apply what they have learned to real life, according to Forseter. Not every student had the same itinerary, but everyone visited the Supreme Court, the Capitol, the House of Representatives and the Senate Office Buildings.
“We are working on the Judicial branch so it was really interesting to go into the Supreme Court and to see John Marshall, who we are learning about and to see where the actual oral arguments are,” Forester said. “And then we also recently [learned] about the other branches. So it all tied together.”
On the trip, students were taught the different roles and responsibilities of government officials, and it made it easier to understand what goes on in the government, Forseter said. He enjoyed witnessing being on the inside of things as they walked through buildings, and had the opportunity to interact with legislators and senators.
Students also had opportunities to meet with elected officials. Some groups met with Senator Van Hollen or other senators and representatives, where they asked questions about different policies and different court cases that they were learning about in their government classes. Eighth grade student Liya Saratovsky noticed that when the senators were answering their questions, she could truly understand what they were saying about different policies.
“I really enjoyed going to the Capitol and just seeing like, how everything works, especially what we see on TV, is really cool to see in person,” Saratovsky said.
The curriculum really connected to what they saw while being in the Supreme Court, eighth grade government teacher Matthew Jacobson said. He loved that students were able to see Senator Van Hollen talk about current events, which connected to what eighth graders are learning about the Due Process of Law, in which the government must act fairly and follow established legal procedures when it takes actions that could affect a person’s life, liberty or property.
When Jacobson was preparing students to meet the senators, he saw how nervous and anxious they were coming into it. He said that they were frantically asking him questions like “What are we going to ask him?” and “What if I mess up?” but is proud of their realization that they are humans too, and also made mistakes.
“It was really cool, especially in the Supreme Court. I sat behind a couple of students, and just there were points where some of them turned to me, [and said] ‘Oh my gosh, I remember [learning] that,’ getting to see the light bulb go off in real time was really, really cool,” Jacobson said. “And for me, it’s the best part of teaching, where they can go out into the world and kind of see all the things that they learned in the classroom.”