Last Friday, our 8th grade class led the Remembrance chapel for our students and guests. The assembly was the end product of their Remembrance Project whose driving question was: "How can we create a Remembrance Day chapel for our school community?" The kick-off event for this project-learning experience was the Sacrifice Object Lesson as described here by the students:
On October 24th, after we came in from recess, the Grade 8 class was expecting to have our typical afternoon of Language Arts. However, we were instructed to go outside and gather at one end of the small soccer field. Once we were all together outside, Mr. Schaafsma asked for two volunteers who would be willing to sacrifice their safety on behalf of our class. The two brave volunteers who stepped up to sacrifice themselves for us were Amy and Ryan. Mr. Schaafsma then informed us that we were standing in the midst of an imaginary forest fire, each of us had imaginary broken limbs and were unable to escape from the fire. Our two heroes were instructed to carry each of us one by one, over to the forest fire evacuation zone. They were instructed to do this quickly because the fire was spreading rapidly. So, with great courage Amy and Ryan carried each one of us to safety in the forest fire evacuation zone. This deed was an act of sacrifice on the part of our heroes, Amy and Ryan. Sacrifice can be defined as the offering of oneself to serve a higher purpose. This means people must give up things for the greater good of society. As a class we have learned about sacrifice and this chapel is our way of providing a place for our school to reflect on sacrifice as it relates to all those men and women who have given their lives in war as a sacrifice for our freedom.
    Students included prayer, readings, drama, song, video, and a connection to the book that they are studying in literature. We as Christian community understand sacrifice, too, in the context of God's grace and Jesus suffering and death on our behalf. Thank you students for creating and sharing a meaningful chapel.

                            C. Verbeek