American history is the topic of the year for social studies at Juneau Adventist Christian School, and the students had a living lesson the very first week of school. The students gathered on Friday morning, Aug. 21, at the federal courtroom of Judge Leslie Logenbaugh as 33 people were sworn in as U.S. citizens.
Included in this group, the largest ever at one time for the state of Alaska, was Jorghette Wales-Plang, mother to Matthew Plang, one of the school's own third-graders. After the ceremony was over, the students joined the celebration for all the friends and families of the newly minted U.S. citizens.
Having just learned about how the United States got started, from people emigrating from England, this made the lesson very personal to these students. On returning to the classroom, they studied the citizenship oath sentence by sentence to understand the rights, privileges and responsibilities of being a citizen. This was a perfect lead-in to worship, which talked about our being adopted as citizens of the Father’s kingdom and the rights, privileges and responsibilities of being a citizen of heaven. The students also discussed how immigrants had to study for a test to be approved and so do heaven's citizens. It proved to be a joyful, delightful way to begin the school year.
A naturalization ceremony for 33 people, including a classmate's mother, gives Juneau Adventist Christian School students a firsthand social studies lesson.
