Mount Vernon, Davis Academy Students Explore One Another's Faiths

SANDY SPRINGS, GA — Fifth grade students from The Alfred & Adele Davis Academy last week hosted their peers from Mount Vernon Presbyterian School for a half-day of interfaith dialogue and learning. With the help of teachers and administrators from both schools, students were given a chance to get to know each other and also teach one another about their respective traditions in a fun and interactive way.

When asked about the outcome of the interfaith program, Rabbi Micah Lapidus said it was great to see the students understand "the importance of interfaith dialogue, partnership, and understanding."

"Because of days like today, they have a head start on figuring out how they will help shape a more tolerant and peaceful society for all of us," Rabbi Lapidus added.

To kick start the day, the 150 students were welcomed into The Davis Academy’s Kaufman Chapel, where the key theme of the day — working together across our differences — was introduced and students were split into four different groups comprised of both Mount Vernon and Davis students.

Each group participated in a series of activities:

• Breakout EDU style technology challenge
• A “project adventure” style series of physical activities
• The presentation of a jointly authored “ABC book” that allowed each child to teach some aspect of their religious heritage according to a letter of the alphabet they were assigned in a developmentally appropriate way.

During the breakout activity, students worked in small teams to solve a challenge. The challenge presented to the students was to figure out how to gain access to a synagogue and a church without the keys. To regain entry into the buildings without a key, students had to utilize their knowledge of their religion to answer a series of questions to gain clues that would eventually lead them to find the “key” to the imaginary prayer chapels. Questions included: “What were the three gifts that the wise men offered at the birth of Christ?” and “In the story of Jonah and the Whale, where did God tell Jonah to go?”

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For the project adventure exercise, students participated in interactive physical challenges that required a high level of communication, strategy, and cooperation. The activities included finding creative ways to spell out words such as “honor,” “peace” and “coexist” with their bodies. Additionally, students played the team-oriented game of “crossing the river.” For this game, the four teams were allotted two gymnastics mats or “rafts”, and they were challenged to position their “rafts” and themselves in a way that enabled their team to hop between their “rafts” as they moved across the gym or “river,” all while staying afloat on the raft as a team.

The jointly authored “ABC book” provided an opportunity for the students to share aspects of their respective religions. Prior to the interfaith program, Mount Vernon and Davis students were assigned alternating letters of the alphabet and asked to illustrate and describe a facet of their religion that started with the letter they were given. During the morning of interfaith programming, both Mount Vernon and Davis Academy students presented their contributions to the “ABC book,” giving detail on their page and sharing the significance of the religious aspect they chose to focus on.

When asked about her experience during the interfaith programming, Mount Vernon fifth grader Anna Katherine Lucas said learning about Judaism was "very interesting."

"We learned about traditions and holidays and understanding different beliefs," she added. "The best part was getting to know each other and we became friends."

When the students first gathered in The Davis Academy’s Chapel, the schools initially sat only with their peers from their respective schools. At the conclusion of the program, students from both schools were sitting intermixed with one another. It was clear, even from the change in seating, that the overarching goal of breaking down barriers and promoting understanding had been achieved.

While this was the first meeting of these two groups of students during the 2017-2018 academic year, it is not the first time that Davis Academy and Mount Vernon fifth graders have met to engage in interfaith dialogue. This year’s program was the result of a shared desire by Rabbi Micah Lapidus of The Davis Academy and Dean of Student Life Laura Fillyaw of Mount Vernon to expand students’ knowledge about the different faiths.

Images via Mount Vernon Presbyterian School