Middle school field trip shines light on faith and history
To teach his students about religion’s essential role in history, John Muir Middle School social science teacher Barry Sarna takes his students on an annual field trip to tour different places of worship in the community.
Sarna led the field trip again last week, and his seventh-grade students got an up-close look at a 100-year-old Torah at Burbank Temple Emanu El and listened to organ music at Burbank First United Methodist Church.
As part of the seventh-grade state standards, Sarna teaches his students about early Christianity, Islam and the Protestant Reformation. About a dozen years ago, he decided to take his students on a field trip to bolster his classroom lectures.
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“I wanted to bring my seventh-grade curriculum to life. My hope is that they will come away understanding that there is more that binds us together than separates us,” Sarna said after the field trip. “I especially think this is important in today’s world when there is so much misunderstanding about people who have different ideas and beliefs than ours.”
The students also visited St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church and St. Ephraim Syriac Orthodox Church.
Student Rachel Tomasck said she was impressed to see several religions practiced in Burbank.
“Although we learned about these different religions in class, it was eye-opening to see them in person and how they practice their religion. It was amazing to see how Burbank has so many contributions of religions,” Rachel said.
Her classmate Madison Gomez added: “I learned a lot about these places that I might have never [known]. These houses of worship were more similar than different.”
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
