On October 9th, 2014, the “U.S. & World Government” class took a field trip down to the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. to debate the “Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010” at the United States Department of Agriculture. The class presented to two U.S.D.A. officials, Mr. Matt Mckenna and Ms. Hillary Caron, debating the legitimacy of the bill.

Mr. Fitzpatrick and the class was invited to D.C. by his brother in law and U.S.D.A. employee Matt McKenna to come visit the United States Department of Agriculture. Mr. McKenna agreed with Mr. Fitzpatrick that the trip would be “a great opportunity for Hackley students to visit the nation’s capital and learn something in the process.”

The class was separated into three groups; one group supported the position of the U.S.D.A., one group served as a moderate group who criticized certain aspects of the bill, yet, agreed with many of its principles, and one group opposed the bill altogether.

A few major issues that came up regarding this bill were how efficiently it was being implemented, and whether our nation could actually afford the economic expenditure.

One point that was raised is the fact that children are sometimes not willing to eat the healthy food being offered to them. Senior Andrew Alini’s view on the issue is similar to that of many politicians: “Although the law has many merits, the government spending was too high for kids to just throw away food.”

Although the participants count the trip as an overall success, students were slightly nervous about the presentations. A few students admitted that this may have been because all of the students were required to present in front of the actual government officials that passed the bill in the first place.

“I was quite intimidated by the idea of presenting to government officials, so the train ride down consisted of frantic revisions and last minute prep. Much to my surprise and relief, our hosts were neither austere nor bureaucratic. Our presentations were more Socratic than I expected—we sat around a conference table, discussing the material and providing counter-arguments after each group had shared its position,” said junior Phebe du Pont. Phebe presented from a moderate point of view at the U.S.D.A. during the debate.

Despite any initial nerves, Mr. Fitzpatrick passionate believes that “the Hackley students did a tremendous job presenting positions on a complicated issue and asked a lot of great questions to the congressional liaison who helped moderate our session.” Hopefully future U.S. & World Government classes will have a similarly enriching experience.