For nearly a decade, the Crossroads Academy eighth-grade class has visited Boston for their culminating Middle School field trip.
After traveling to Boston on the Dartmouth Coach, students ate lunch on the Boston Common. From there, they visited four important sites: The Embrace, a sculpture commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King; Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Robert Gould Shaw and the MA 54th Regiment Memorial; the Massachusetts State House; and the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill. In each location, students read or recited excerpts from speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, President John F. Kennedy, and Frederick Douglass.
Climbing the steps to the African Meeting House rostrum one at a time, students delivered Douglass’s seminal “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech from memory. After a joyful afternoon snack at Quincy Market, the group traveled by ferry to Thompson Island. On the island, they enjoyed a visit to a salt marsh, skipping rocks, a campfire on the beach, and a class overnight in dormitories.
After breakfast on Wednesday morning, students took the ferry back to the mainland. After meandering along the Rose Kennedy Greenway–a string of parks encircling the downtown–the trip concluded with a feast at Antico Forno Pizza Restaurant. The two-day adventure was sure to provide memories the class will treasure forever, and was a wonderful way to conclude their years at Crossroads.
