Seattle school plans Hunger Games field trip

Jennifer Lawrence stars as heroine Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games, which one Seattle school is turning into an educational field trip. (AP image)

The teachers at Seattle Girl’s School know most, if not
all of their 8th graders are going to see the Hunger Games
movie. So they figured rather than stick their heads in
the sand and ignore the phenomenon, they’d embrace it and
take the students to the the film themselves.

“I think folks who try to create the bubble around the
young people, they’re losing a fighting battle so we
prefer to be there with them,” says Head of School Rafael
del Castillo.

Students at the private middle school have been obsessed
with the Hunger Games since the first book became a must-
read for young people, and del Castillo says
administrators and teachers have payed close attention
since.

“We have to be very careful about where they are at
developmentally,” he says.

After reviewing the books they determined the violent,
dystopian series was too much for 5th and 6th graders, but
wholly appropriate as students reached 8th grade,
“especially since these young women are about to head out
to high school and they’re going to start encountering all
sorts of things and we believe in building them up and
turning them into really resilient citizens for the next
school,”

Ultimately, del Castillo says it was the students
discussion of issues raised by the series that led to the
school outing to see the film.

“100% were reading this book, were intending to go to
this movie. So really we sort of entered their world and
said ‘let’s do this together.'”

Parents are also a critical part of the conversation, and
del Castillo says the school always encourages the entire
community’s engagement with any potentially questionable
material.

“We all have to engage the media, parents have to read it
and then we have to talk to each other about its
developmental appropriateness,” he says.

But he says what’s appropriate for his school might not be
for students at another, and emphasizes he’s not
advocating other schools take the same approach.

“Each school has to figure out their population and where
their kids are at.”

While there’s no formal curriculum planned, del Castillo
says students and teachers alike will determine the best
way to tackle violence, gender, totalitarianism and the
other issues raised after they see the film.

“They’re really curious, critical consumers of a book
being taken to the movie realm. A very rich discussion is
going to come out of it.”