Lectures and notes, quizzes and tests; these are the grist of the educational experience of virtually every high school student in America. GPAs, ACTs and SATs are the measures of learning nearly everywhere as well. English, math, science and history courses are taught in all American high schools. Denver Christian has long had a reputation of offering an excellent, yet traditional education in much the same mold as most public high schools. Increasingly however, DC has begun to explore ways to not only educate more effectively, but more importantly, to educate more meaningfully. This has meant developing new and innovative teaching strategies and complementing traditional practices with new and different experiences for students. As a Christian school, DC also desires to address moral issues and to help shape the values of its students.

Speaking of the Holocaust in his book Night, survivor and author Elie Weisel said, "Whoever has not lived through the event can never know it." Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Holocaust occurred nearly 70 years ago, most adult Americans are quite aware that it did in fact occur. But will the current generation of teenagers be as aware? Will they understand and appreciate the suffering of European Jews? Will they realize that genocide did not end in 1945? Will they be on guard to prevent such horrors in the future? And if these are important questions, how could Denver Christian address them?

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) currently is producing The Diary of Anne Frank, a playthat provides a wonderful opportunity for audiences of all ages to experience the gripping story of the Frank family hiding from the Gestapo during WWII. Every year for the past 17 years Denver Christian High School has taken its entire student body to at least one production at the DCPA. When the fall schedule for 2007 was announced last spring, English teacher René Meyer immediately chose The Diary of Anne Frank and recognized that this show would offer some unique opportunities. Therefore, she suggested that DC's seventh and eighth graders from both the Van Dellen and Highland's Ranch campuses be included as well. Eventually, along with colleague Tami Zietse, she also enrolled in a workshop designed to help teachers both prepare students for the show and to use the experience in their classrooms afterward.

On Saturday, October 13, Meyer and Zietse attended the workshop at the DCPA. The workshop inspired them to sketch out plans for several pre-show "sessions" for all the students scheduled to attend. Their goal was to give students a variety of experiences to increase their sensitivity to and awareness of the Holocaust as well as the notion of genocide. Again, the administration and staff were consulted and plans began to take shape.

Buses from Highland's Ranch Middle School and Van Dellen Middle School began arriving at the high school campus about 10 am on November 26. Students in grades 7 - 12 were randomly divided into four groups of about 90 students and given name tags. For the next 3 hours they rotated through 4 different "stations." At one station, students in pairs experienced being controlled (the clay) by another student (the sculptor). They then observed all the "sculptures" before changing roles. At another station, students relived the experiences of children in the Terezin concentration camp. In 1943, at Terezin, young children expressed their thoughts and experiences through art and poetry which miraculously survived the war. These were preserved and eventually published in a children's book entitled, I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Thus, each DC student was given a name of a Jewish child, decorated a butterfly in honor of that child, pinned it to a wall and then listened as a list of causalities of Terezin was read. Each time a death was announced the respective butterfly was removed. Only one in four butterflies remained on the board at the end of the session.

At the third station, students were directed to find other students who met certain "criteria." Soon they stopped seeing one another as people, but only as objects that met a specified description. Finally, at a fourth station, the Holocaust was put in a larger context as just one of a number of genocides that occurred during the twentieth and early twenty first centuries with a special focus on Rwanda.

All students, with their teacher facilitators, spent 30 minutes at each station, and then rotated to the next. Halfway through the day, everyone enjoyed hamburgers and hot dogs grilled and served by DC teachers and administrators. At the end of the day all students returned to their buildings and debriefed. Based on student comments, the time was well spent.

The process was repeated again on Tuesday the 27th, except the 360 students were bused downtown. Seated in the "Space" theater, the students and faculty were captivated by the 8 actors who never left the stage. Acting "in the round" these actors gave the audience a sense of living in fear and isolation day after day in extremely close quarters. Because the story is well known and many students have been exposed to Anne Frank's diary, most in the theater probably knew that eventually the Frank family was discovered and taken to concentrations camps. Yet, during the show, as the actors connected with the audience, it is possible that many hoped that maybe there would be a different ending, a happy ending. Perhaps then, these experiences will cause some of these students to become the type of people and leaders who will strive to insure that such horrors never occur again. For the sake of humanity and our world's future, let us hope and pray some do. And if so, this kind of education "outside the box" while have been worth the effort.