Chase reports:

Our grade went on a field trip to see the movie “Hidden Figures.” We took the subway to a stop close to Penn Station. We walked about a block to the movie theater. When we entered the movie theater, my mouth dropped. The movie theater was bigger than the Great Hall in Ellis Island. We went up the escalator to the floor where our theater was. We got to that floor and walked to theater 8 where we would be seeing the movie.

Most field trips have a purpose. Some don’t. Did this field trip have a purpose? It sounds like it didn’t but it did. In reading, we read a book called Turning 15 On The Road To Freedom. It  is about a girl named Linda who marched on Bloody Sunday and on the march on Montgomery. The book involves one civil rights related subjects that Hidden Figures focused on – segregation. Segregation was a horrible thing.

I already saw the movie before we went on the field trip so it wasn’t as good as it was when I first saw it.  Some people who only watched the movie once think it’s one of those movies for entertainment. When you watch it twice, you’ll think something different. When I watched “Hidden Figures” for the second time, I understood why the producers made the movie and how and why the movie’s not just for entertainment. I mean you might be thinking, “Why would a class go to a movie in school?” That’s what I’m telling you. You learn that segregation is horrible and people are smarter than you think.

After school for homework, we had to write a journal entry pretending we were one of the main characters: Dorothy Vaughn, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson.

It was a fun field trip.

Jasiri’s journal entry, written as Katherine Johnson.